Counseling
Having a serious illness, or caring for someone who does, affects everything.
It can change your relationships, your confidence, your sense of identity, and every plan for the future.
You grieve losses no one else can see, from having less independence to shifting family roles to uncertainties for the life you expected to have.
Among complex medical questions are even greater investigations.
"Who am I now?"
"How do I keep living while everything feels in doubt?"
"Will I ever feel like myself again?"
You don't have to harbor those questions alone.
My counseling services are offered through AMANDA DODSON | COUNSELING AND CARE PLANNING LLC.
My work includes:
Mindfulness-Based Therapy
Learning to meet difficult experiences with greater awareness, compassion, and steadiness.
Narrative Therapy
Helping you reclaim authorship of your story so illness or caregiving becomes part of your life, instead of the whole story.
Values-Centered Therapy (ACT)
Exploring what continues to give your life purpose, connection, and direction, especially during uncertainty.
Somatic Therapy
Listening to how stress, grief, fear, and hope live within your body, and gently creating space for comfort.
For people living with critical illness,
our work together can help with:
navigating uncertainty
living with losses and limitations
strengthening self care and support systems
preparing for and accepting test results
weighing risks, benefits, and burdens of treatments
setting goals aligned with your priorities
improving communication in relationships
reprioritizing and making difficult decisions
setting healthy boundaries
For family caregivers and healthcare professionals,
our work together can help with:
balancing compassion with boundary setting
resilience for emotional distress
exploring what you are & are not responsible for
being a decision-maker amid uncertainty
softening self-criticism
coping skills for anticipatory and compounded grief
facilitating difficult conversations
developing listening skills and the ability to hold space
strengthening self care and support systems
What to Expect
Your sessions are a space where you can be honest and authentic.
You don't have to be positive. You don’t need to have the right words. You don't need to protect me from your emotions.
Some visits are filled with conversation, others with silence.
Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we cry.
Sometimes we simply make space for what has been too heavy to carry alone.
Together we'll move at your pace, exploring what matters most to you and discovering ways to live with greater clarity, courage, and compassion. No matter the road ahead.
My counseling services are offered through AMANDA DODSON | COUNSELING AND CARE PLANNING LLC.
Counseling for the
Cancer Continuum
If you or a loved one has experienced a cancer diagnosis, you face unique questions and decisions.
I specialize in working with individuals everywhere on the cancer spectrum, whether you are in treatment, in surveillance, in remission, or somewhere in between.
Click below for more information.
My Philosophy
Healing can happen every day.
Despite treatments. Regardless of outcomes.
In subtle moments that can radically repair wounds of a lifetime.
Perspective
Change happens when we can notice our experiences rather than fight them.
Perspective lets us view life through a more helpful lens.
Compassion
Suffering diminishes when we recognize pain is part of the human condition.
Compassion holds space no matter the weight of suffering.
Harmony
Connection is restored when we recognize the cycles of life within us and around us.
Harmony is the essence of belonging.
The evidence-based therapeutic tools I use – namely ACT, Mindfulness-Based Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and Somatic Therapy – integrate together to build skills particularly suited for shifting perspective, building compassion, and restoring harmony.