You've been trying so hard to be "good."
You're wondering why every choice feels like it has a right answer, and you're afraid to get it wrong.
You've spent years trying to live up to expectations.
A religion.
Your parents.
A relationship.
Your career.
Even the expectations you've placed on yourself.
Now you're left wondering:
What do I actually want?
But even asking that question can feel selfish.
MIKE ROTHSCHILD, LPC
In-person therapy in Austin · Online throughout Texas
I'm not here to give you another list of rules to live by.
I'm here to help you hear yourself more clearly. That usually means slowing down.
Looking at where your beliefs and expectations came from.
Getting curious about emotions you're quick to dismiss.
Understanding why parts of you developed the way they did, rather than believing they're broken.
Over time, "What am I supposed to do?"
will start sounding more like, “What do I want to try?”
That shift doesn't happen because I have all the solutions.
It happens because we start asking different questions.
Here’s what that looks like in session with me.
Therapy with me is conversational.
Sometimes you'll be telling a story, and I'll interrupt. Not because you’ve said something wrong, but because you may have just said something worth slowing down for.
If you say, "I should..." I'll probably wonder where that "should" came from.
We laugh a lot in therapy. Sometimes because something is genuinely funny. Sometimes because humor is how we've learned to survive difficult things. Either way, I'm interested in both.
Those moments aren't detours. They're usually where therapy gets interesting.
I know what it's like to sit on the other side of the room.
I've gone through significant changes in my own life. My journey isn't yours, but I know the feeling of sitting on the sofa, hoping the therapist across from me will understand.
I don't want a therapist to tell me whether I'm right or wrong.
I'm asking them to live in my world with me for 50 minutes and understand that what I'm saying is true for me in that moment.
When I feel understood, I can get curious.
Curiosity gives me room to change.
Change has cost me things that I’ve valued, and plenty of my decisions haven’t worked out perfectly.
The decisions I value most are the ones I know were actually mine.
There's something freeing about knowing, I chose this. And if one day it no longer fits, I can choose something different.
