Makenna Overton, Psy.D.

You’re not living the life you imagined. You find yourself in the same patterns in your relationships. You feel isolated and avoid situations despite wanting to live your life freely and connect with others. You feel insecure in your relationships or push others away. You’ve been harmed and marginalized by people or organizations that should have had your best interests at heart. Maybe you were rejected as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community or maybe you have experience with a high demand religion. You’re questioning or exploring your identity, beliefs, sexuality, and/or relationship and want a space to find yourself. 

You’ve done your best with the tools you have. Your patterns of being have gotten you through the most difficult moments of your life. However, maybe you find that you want to try something different in a new and safer environment. Amidst these struggles or transitions, you’re taking the brave step of sharing your experiences and hoping for greater well-being. 

Therapy can feel daunting. It can be nerve wracking to share such personal details about your life with someone you only just met. However, I’m glad that you’ve taken the time to look into therapy because it can also be a place of healing. What would it feel like to seperate your true self from what you’ve been told to believe about yourself? What would it feel like to move forward feeling empowered about who you are, what you believe in, and what you want? What would it feel like to finally make headway in changing your relational patterns? Therapy can help us identify how we show up in the world, how these patterns came to be, and strategies for change. Therapy can also be a space to feel heard and validated when we’ve experienced harm. Through expressing our deepest pains and wishes with another human being, therapy can open the door for something different. 

My therapy practice is collaborative and flexible, and I use relational, person-centered, and feminist approaches. It is important to me to offer clients a warm and validating space where they feel truly heard. I believe that you are the expert on your own life. I see my job as walking beside you as we explore together your growth goals, your beliefs, and your identity. An illustrative metaphor a mentor of mine once shared was that the job of a therapist is to look for the stone someone is already standing on in the river. That being said, I take a strengths-based approach. I like to collaboratively work with my clients to utilize what strengths they already have and find new ways to apply them. I also take into account each person’s socio-cultural environment and explore resources and barriers affecting their well-being. I work best with clients who are wanting to better understand themselves and are willing to let me challenge them. You’ll also learn practical strategies such as ways to more fully experience your emotions, stress-reduction coping skills, communication skills, self-care strategies, boundaries, how to more fully engage with others in safe spaces and communities, etc. 

I’m spending time with friends and family, playing with my cat, reading a fantasy novel, or watching a reality dating show.