Deborah Bergmann, MS, LPC, NCC
I came to this work with a conviction in the value of being curious about ourselves, as well as an awareness of the mixture of hope and fear that so often accompanies our curiosity, and the importance of an empathic partner and witness on the road. Over time, that conviction has deepened.
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It's impossible fully to take stock of everything we experience as we live our lives. Impossible to notice, in the moment, the many ways, small and large, that we adapt to what has happened. And yet, in our experiences, and in our adaptation to our experiences, our defenses, our personality, and our character take shape. Sometimes those adaptations serve our lives. But most of us find, at some point, that something about how we take in the world, or how we take up our own desires in the world, isn't working. There is a symptom of some kind, be it anxiety, depression, addiction, PTSD, or something less clinically defined: boredom, cynicism, self-criticism or self-doubt.
We may wonder whether there are other possibilities for how we experience our lives. At those moments, therapy is a uniquely useful space for catching up with ourselves, exploring what we've made of our experiences, and perhaps facing aspects of the past that could not be usefully faced in the past. In this way, we may engage creatively with who we are and where we've been and open up new possibilities. The process of doing this in therapy is many-faceted. It usually involves emotional pain, frustration, laughter, fear, and sometimes joy.
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I have a bachelor's in molecular biology from Yale University. I graduated with a masters in clinical mental health counseling from the University of Texas at San Antonio. I did a pre-graduate internship in integrated behavioral health in a primary care setting and a post-graduate internship in private practice with a focus on grief and chronic pain and illness. I am a candidate in adult psychoanalysis at the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies.
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​I have an interest in trauma and have co-authored a chapter on the neurobiology of trauma for a crisis and trauma counseling textbook.
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I am Mexican-American and am conversant in Spanish.
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