Getting More Than a Conversation

Now In Session | Before We Begin Series | Part 4

I have spent years doing therapeutic work and have come to believe that it is bigger than the time spent in a single session. A lot of the work happens outside of the session, in the private moments where there is time to think and reflect and attempt to put what has been learned into action. And because I am a therapist who also takes advantage of the benefits of therapy, I have found ways to extend the therapeutic work beyond the session itself. What I do in the room, what I write on the page, and the resources I recommend all come from a professional who has also done the personal work.

The Blend

I am a licensed therapist, but I am also a person who has navigated the kinds of things my clients bring through the door. Relationships that did not work out the way they were supposed to. Identity shifts that came without warning. The slow and sometimes disorienting process of figuring out who you are when the life you built around a particular version of yourself starts to change. I do not share my personal experience in session to make the conversation about me. I share it when it helps articulate something that is difficult to put into words, when someone is struggling to name what they are feeling and something I have lived through gives that feeling a shape. That is the part of the work that blends the education with the experience.

Lita's Lens

I have always been someone who thinks and feels deeply, and I write to find words for experiences that are difficult to articulate. Lita's Lens is an introspective blog space where I have chosen to let that journey be witnessed, writing about life transitions, identity, and the ongoing work of being honest about who and how I am as everything changes. Sometimes a conversation sparks something I cannot finish in a session, and the blog becomes the place where that thought finds room to breathe. Other times the writing exists entirely on its own terms, separate from the clinical work but rooted in the same lived experience. The hope is always that something there gives language to something the reader has been carrying.

The Books and Journals

The desire to put words to difficult experiences, to take what I have learned and lived and make it useful, is what eventually led me to write a couple of books and journals as therapy resources as well.

The Bye Anxiety Journal is a daily guided journal with prompts and affirming coloring pages designed to help readers work through anxiety and reclaim a sense of peace on their own terms.

The Renew and Rise Journal is a 45 day journaling experience built to guide women through a comprehensive healing journey. Both are resources I recommend to clients who are ready to do some of the work between sessions, in their own time and at their own pace.

Eve's Exodus is something different. It is a psychoeducational memoir, a coming of age story about multi-generational childhood trauma and its impact on one woman's mental health as she navigates leaving the most significant relationships of her lifetime. It is the most personal thing I have written and in some ways the most useful, because it takes the clinical and makes it human. I recommend it to clients who are working through relationships, identity, difficult decisions, or the long reach of childhood into adult life. It is available in print, ebook, and audio.

Carlita's Way is a newsletter, my version of a cozy corner where I share aspects of my work, my writing, and my way of life. It is a periodic check in to share what has been surfacing in a life that keeps giving me something to think about, and an avenue for those who find that my work resonates with them to stay connected.

More Than a Conversation

This is what I mean when I say the work is not limited to the session. The therapy, the blog, the journals, the memoir, they all come from the same experience and point toward a clearer sense of who we are, what we have been through, and what is possible from here.You are encountering a seasoned professional who is also seasoned person, someone who has done the personal work alongside the clinical work and has spent years finding ways to make both useful.

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