How Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can help you rebuild your life after religious trauma

Photo of a person potting plants to represent religious trauma recovery using ACT therapy

If you’ve realized your religious experience has had a harmful or traumatic impact on you, you may be feeling a complicated array of emotions and unsure of how to find meaning and purpose. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (or ACT, for short) is an approach that is well-suited to navigating this need to process complicated emotions and choose a path forward.

How to cope with anxiety, stress, and compassion fatigue in quarantine

coping during isolation

I was interviewed by Wendy Tilford, Executive Director of Huntington Learning Center, and Amanda Vlastas, Founder of West University Moms to discuss managing the stress, anxiety, and compassion fatigue that the challenges of quarantine pose.  In this video, we talk about how to manage the feeling of not doing enough, the pain of comparing ourselves to how others are managing, and the fatigue that comes from helping everyone around us cope.

Meditation for anxiety – where to start

Meditation for anxiety

When clients come to me for help with anxiety, I often find that they have given meditation a try, but they say that it wasn’t helpful for them. I hear reactions such as “I just can’t calm down when I meditate” or “it seems like my mind is too busy and chaotic for meditation.” I […]

5 signs you might benefit from therapy

ashley hamm anxiety houston counselor

Learn about how therapy doesn’t necessarily have to be about problems – it can be about coming to a better understanding of yourself and what you want out of life.

The surprising benefits of journaling about your feelings

Houston Anxiety and Self-Esteem Counselor

If you are under stress or going through a difficult experience such as grieving a loss or managing a chronic illness, journaling about your thoughts and feelings may help you cope and could even improve your health! This article explores why this practice might be helpful and how you can get started.

A video introduction to working with me

Houston Anxiety and Stress Counselor

I shot this short video to share about me and my counseling practice in Houston, TX. I describe how I help my clients work through their anxiety and worry in order to pursue what matters to them.  I talk about some of the types of therapy I use, such as mindfulness, that can help you […]

How to give yourself a break from self-criticism

Counseling in Houston for anxiety

You know the feeling – you’ve done something you regret or something embarrassing and you feel dread in the pit of your stomach. The thought comes, “Oh no, I messed up again.” For many of us what follows is an internal process of beating ourselves up for what we did. We name-call and bully ourselves, trying to give ourselves some tough love.