Washington: PY60780204
California: PSY14102
Therapy for Mental Health Professionals
Individual & Couples Therapy • Therapy for Climate & Political Stress
WELCOME!
Some concerns that bring my clients to therapy:
“I feel guilty for feeling bad when there are so many people hurting a lot more than me.”
“I can't stop thinking about everything that's wrong in the world. I just want to numb out.”
“I feel like the help I give is just a drop in the bucket.”
"Work-life balance? I don't even know what that is anymore."
“I’ve tried mindfulness, but I can't relax.”
Our personal struggles exist against the heartbreaking backdrop of climate crisis, political division, and injustice. As our thoughts go around in circles, we find that our anxiety and distress increase, and our presence of mind diminishes. However your pain uniquely expresses itself--anxiety, depression, compulsive behaviors designed to distract and numb, and more--the more you think about it and vow to change, the worse it gets.
In a world filled with so much suffering, helping professionals are tasked with holding their own pain even as they hold the pain of others. Feeling so deeply for others, you may struggle with compassion fatigue and a sense that what you do can never be enough. As you serve others, you may forget to replenish yourself at precisely the time you need your own care the most.
Although we might think that accessing our feelings will just make things worse, the opposite is true. Our analytical, problem-solving minds do so much for us, but we can't think our way out of our pain. In your journey of therapy, I help you drop below the level of thought into the wisdom of body and heart. We gently examine what's hurting with compassion and without judgment, and healing begins. As clarity reemerges, you find the wisdom to make the changes you desire.
Join me!
You are the sky. Everything else—it’s just the weather
—Pema Chödrön
About Me
I'm a clinical psychologist with over 25 years of experience. I received my BA from Harvard and PhD from the University of California at Los Angeles. After a 3-year post-doctoral fellowship in the UCLA Medical Center and a brief stint in academia, I followed my true calling of working to help others heal.
Psychotherapy for the Mind, Body, and Spirit
Because my clients come to me to help ease their suffering, our therapy relationship is inherently unequal. You, my client, are vulnerable as you share what hurts most deeply; my commitment is to hold this imbalance with care and respect.
As helping professionals, we are confronted daily with the suffering of our patients and clients. We were drawn to healing professions for the profound ways our work feeds the spirit, but as those we serve are suffering more, it can be too much to hold by ourselves. Compassion fatigue may set in, and our days can become exhausting.
My clients enter therapy feeling stuck. Therapy provides a path of healing, a means of finding the ease, peace, and equanimity they seek in life.
Being in a partnership in which we feel loved, understood, appreciated in our finest qualities and quirks, and accepted in our deepest flaws, can be one of the most deeply meaningful experiences in life. It’s not easy: We quickly learn that love does not conquer all.
We live in deeply disheartening times that exhaust the soul. Many of us struggle to have faith in the survival of our imperfect democracy and our planet. Cynicism, numbing, and paralysis are humanly understandable responses, but don’t provide true refuge.
I will soon begin conducting Climate-Conscious Group Therapy for individuals suffering from climate anxiety, climate grief, and other painful feelings such as anger, fear, despair, and powerlessness that emerge as we witness the escalating threat that climate change and environmental destruction pose to the health of our planet and all sentient beings that inhabit it.
Contact Me
Marcia Rorty, PhD
103 E 4th Ave, Suite 201
Ellensburg, WA 98926
(509) 607-6440
Send me a private message:
© 2022 by Marcia Rorty, Ph.D.