Julie Attalla,
Graduate Therapist Intern
under the supervision of Tia Jennings, LPC-S
You’re having some big emotions and you just can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from. You’re worn out and tired and sweep it under the rug creating more and more tangles of emotions that you can’t deal with. It’s exhausting and interfering with your day-to-day activities. You know that you want to release the stress and anxiety but you can’t figure out how. You just want to be heard.
You know that you’ve been successful in making it this far so it’s simpler to carry on doing life until it isn’t anymore. You want to take the time to untangle the emotions you’ve been putting off confronting and you’re almost there. Whether it’s been a generational taboo to talk about mental health or seek help, it takes courage to speak up and do it. Acknowledging that you desire the help to be heard is a great first step in getting you one step closer to your goal.
Some people believe that we’re predestined to our way of career and life. I believe that our social norms and community have an impact on our patterns of thinking and behaving as well. One way to tackle that idea is by getting an aim of what our norms even are as there is no such thing as one single norm. This is where a wide cultural view comes into play, and we can apply that to get a better understanding of “why I do things the way I do”. I’m sure many of us have tried to find an answer to “Why do I feel this way”, and sometimes it takes more than pinpointing an emotion to understand that.
This is where I can help. I have been in your position plenty of times. I understand when the burnout comes as a surprise and hits like a brick. You want to be recognized and seen and I’ll guide you through that. Together we can navigate your stress and anxiety and unravel the tangle of emotions. Our bodies keep our score whether we realize it or not and seeking help with guidance is an exemplary decision. This will be done through the use of mindfulness and CBT with a bit of Adlerian techniques (for sociological understanding).
My journey in becoming a therapist may not be a unique one in terms of colleagues in our field, but it is special to me. Growing up as the middle child has quite literally put me in the midst of all of my familial struggles. Somehow, someway along the way I became the “at-home therapist” and it grew into a passion that I took on as practice.
As an Egyptian first-generation American, I understand the struggles of taboo behind the topic of mental health. I played along with this mentality for a while as it was my social norm and all I knew. I constantly compared the emotions I was dealing with as “cables that needed managing” but I just couldn’t organize them. Now I am grateful to realize and understand that this is true strength and courage and asking for a helping hand is tough.
As a therapist intern, I will be new to the game, but that does not define my passion to help you. The experiences I have had up until now have been with friends and family and I look forward to putting the knowledge I’ve gained into this opportunity. I earned a BS in Sociology at Texas A&M and continued straight into pursuing a MA in Clinical Mental Health and Walden University.
I am still exploring methods that will work best in my kind of therapy but I do enjoy mindfulness, CBT, and Adlerian therapy. I enjoy mindfulness therapy simply to help with awareness of our surroundings and feelings as this may help with our primary concern of jumbled-up emotions from the past. CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy provides the range of techniques and help necessary for depression, all the way to marital problems. Lastly, I enjoy Adlerian simply for the emphasis on connectedness and understanding our lifestyles.
