Life transitions
A move, a career change, a divorce, a new baby, a house that suddenly has fewer people in it. Sometimes the change was your idea and it still knocked you sideways.
Our office, on Shoal Creek across from Pease Park. Sessions here or virtually, anywhere in Texas.
A transition is a strange thing to ask for help with, because there is often nobody to blame and nothing to point at. Everyone around you is treating it as good news, or as old news, and you are somewhere behind that.
What brings people here is not always a single event. Often it is the rest of it:
You got the thing you wanted and it did not land the way you expected.
Your days look the same as everyone else's and you no longer recognize the shape of yours.
The people who used to know you are somewhere else now, and starting again at this age is harder than anyone says.
The version of your life you had been assuming quietly stopped being available.
You are grieving something you also chose, which is confusing enough to keep to yourself.
You do not need a reason anybody else would accept. ELLEN WE NEED YOUR INPUT HERE. These five are plausible rather than real. Replace them with the transitions people actually arrive with.
You do not have to know what to call it.
We chose the name Decades for both halves: the years behind you, and the years still ahead. What you have been through is real. It does not get to write the rest of the story.
You do not have to arrive with the thing already named.
Tell us what you are dealing withThe consultation. Twenty free minutes. You describe what has changed and how it has landed, and we work out whether this is the right place and who fits. It ends in a recommendation, not an assignment.
The first sessions. What the change actually moved, which is usually more than the obvious thing. Work, people, routine, how you spend a Tuesday, and what you assumed the next few years looked like.
After that. ELLEN WE NEED YOUR INPUT HERE. What genuinely happens next when the presenting thing is a transition rather than a symptom, and how a clinician tells the difference between adjusting and something that needs treating.
Ellen Johnson
MA, LPC | Clinical Director
Transitions are one of the more common reasons people call here, and they are taken as seriously as anything with a clinical name on it. Most of the work is making sense of what actually changed, rather than talking you into feeling better about it.
Some people are here for a season and some stay longer. Both are normal, and neither is the goal.
Where this overlaps
A move takes a relationship with it. A new baby lands on two people differently. A divorce is a transition and a loss at the same time. Whichever door you come through, the work goes where it needs to.
If it has landed on the relationship: couples therapyThe methods, and where they fit. ELLEN WE NEED YOUR INPUT HERE. What is honestly used here when the presenting thing is a transition, and by whom. Please name only what somebody is actually trained in.
If the change was work, or work is what broke: burnout and stress therapyNot sure which? Ask on a free consultationThis is not a filler category on a list of specialties. A change that has knocked somebody sideways is one of the most common reasons people call here, and it does not need to be reframed as anxiety or depression before it counts.
Yes. Nothing has to have gone wrong for a change to cost you something, and a transition you chose can be as disorienting as one you did not. The test is how much room it is taking up, not whether it would sound serious to somebody else.
That is a normal way to start. Working out what changed and what it cost is often the first piece of the work rather than a prerequisite for it.
They overlap more than people expect. Most transitions involve losing a version of your life even when the change was good, and that part often goes unnamed. You do not need to decide which one this is before you call.
Often less time than people expect, because there is usually something specific to work out. Nothing here is open-ended by default, and you are not committing to a number of sessions by booking a consultation.
Appointments Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm, in person in Central Austin (across from Pease Park) or virtually across Texas. Weekends are sometimes available, so please ask if that works better for you.
No. The practice does not bill insurance directly. We can check your out-of-network benefits for you, by hand, before you commit to anything.
Say so on the consultation. Some of the team are working under supervision toward full licensure and see clients at a reduced fee, and it is a normal thing to ask about rather than an awkward one.
Twenty free minutes. You describe what changed and how it landed, we tell you honestly whether this is the right place, and you decide from there.
Book a free consultationPick a time that suits you, sometimes as early as today.
We talk through what would help.
You leave with a name, or somewhere else to look. Either way you are not back at the search bar.
%20(1).png)
