"It takes (at least) two minds to think." - Thomas Ogden

I work with folks who are introspective, critical thinkers, curious, and feel longing or anxiety about being connected to others. Long-held assumptions can tighten their grip on you at the moments you are most ready to break free. If you are ready to connect to your vibrant, alive self, and grieve losses, failures, and disappointments, and believe somehow that knowing yourself in a deep way can open up potential space for something else, I could be the right therapist for you.

You’re seeking therapy or psychoanalysis because something just doesn’t feel right. Is it coming from you or from your environment? Maybe, it’s both. You need help with work, relationships, your self-esteem, or something else— and you are hoping that another mind can help you. You may be feeling the pressure and pain of living and loving through personal, social, and planetary grief. You might be longing to make or receive something beautiful (children, art, love, nourishment, learning) in a painful world. You might be trapped by old patterns and feel like you have no other options but to repeat the things that hurt you. You might need space to grieve, rage, and find yourself despite the bids of others to stay the same. All of this can feel exhausting or impossible to do alone. Stress and pressure from family, work, internal expectations, and people you love or want to impress can take their toll on you. That inner critic can be relentless- the voice that judges you, lowers your confidence, and leaves you feeling like you want it to be okay to just be yourself.

But first, you have to find out who you are.

Who I see in my practice:

• Adults who never got a real childhood and had to grow up too fast.

• People grieving the death of someone they love.

• Folks struggling with alcohol abuse, over-exercising, binge eating, restriction, self-punishment, or a mean internal critic.

• Skeptics who have had to build toughness around their sensitivity.

• People who move through the margins of class, race and gender, who have a unique perspective of living "in between".

• White folks waking up to their compliance in a racist system.

• Folks of color seeking to thrive in spite of structural oppression, anti-Blackness, and anti-Indigeneity.

• Artists and creatives who wish to regain connection with their inspiration, desire, and creativity.

• Cancer survivors and those newly diagnosed with cancer.

• Parents who wish to interrupt emerging transgenerational family trauma patterns.

• Therapists and healers who are struggling with their own personal history and terrain as they work with what emerges in their clients.

• Queer, transgender, and non-binary folks who are experiencing any and all of the above.

If you want to feel more connected to yourself and others,
If you're feeling stuck in unsatisfying relationships and work,
If you feel beaten up by perfectionism and self-criticism,
If you feel like you've had to grow up too fast,
If you realize you can't do it all by yourself,
Call me to find out how our work together could help.

One way to come alive is to face the parts of yourself and your history that you have bottled up for too long.

You don't have to do this alone.

Our task together is to find out what is alive, and what is stuck, inside of you. I listen to you on many levels in a way you may not have encountered before. Through our relationship we can uncover old patterns you have of relating that become present in the here-and-now of our therapy work.

What you and I create together is a special relationship that may resemble old patterns, but the way we work through those patterns is entirely unique to just the two of us. I will be there to listen and be a witness to what emerges inside of you, and in a collaborative and exploratory way, I will share my mind with you.

Through dynamic talk therapy and psychoanalysis, we can go beyond "behavior change" and into what's alive underneath your surface.

As we work together, you may discover that whatever you believe are “problem behaviors” are an attempt at trying to (re)solve something else, something older, beneath the surface.

Your pain needs someone to listen to it. Perhaps it needs the kind of help and alternatives you couldn't ask for when you were young.

As we both listen in our different ways to your unconscious through dreams, narratives, images, and fantasies/phantasies, we can work toward uncovering and understanding your feelings so that you have greater access to yourself. We can encounter you in the context of your life, and help you get in touch with your sadness, pain, desires, fears, hope, agency, self-awareness, and resilience.

I aim to support the deep and challenging work of helping you face your fears, get in touch with your emotional life, and help you discover what's going on that made your critical inner voice so powerful.

Therapy takes courage. It is also a responsibility.

By moving closer to the things you have pushed away, you may feel all those feelings you've tried not to feel. And, you may also uncover a renewed energy and space for creativity, fulfilling relationships, and a balance between play and work. 

Even when things feel impossible, there is always a spark, somewhere.

 It's time to stop hiding from the life you really want to live.

Call me or email me to set up an appointment today.
510-594-4035 or mollymersonlmft@hushmail.com

"And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers.... And new ones will find you and cherish you. ... And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.” - Audre Lorde