Ksenia Belova

Some of the areas I work with include:

• Anxiety: Being in a constant state of inner turmoil and experiencing feelings of dread can have a debilitating impact on your day-to-day life. These struggles can in turn cause you feel confused, helpless, fearful, and out of control. Yet despite its impacts, anxiety is highly treatable. I am here to help you restore your sense of ease, explore your strengths, and master the tools to bring anxiety to rest.
• Depression: Having a hopeless or helpless outlook on life is one of the most troubling symptoms of depression. Feelings of sadness, worthlessness, and discontent can follow you around like a heavy cloud. You may also feel guilty, as though you are burdening others with your experience, or not meeting their expectations. Depression is also highly treatable, and I am here to help renew your sense of purposeful direction, energy, and connection to yourself and the world.
• Relationship difficulties: It's tiring to constantly face the same issues in a relationship, rehashing the same conflicts with no sense of closure or resolution. You may experience communication difficulties, trust issues, or feel stuck in a cycle of arguments that lead to growing anger, hurt, resentment, and confusion. I am here to support you and your partner in better understanding each other's inner world, and the feelings that give rise to conflict in the first place. Together, we will explore your strengths as a couple, learn how to effectively manage conflicts, and cultivate fresh connection and intimacy.
• Eating disorders: Food sustains us, but when our relationship with it (or the body it sustains) is compromised, every moment of a day can become fraught with turmoil. Far from being a source of pleasure, contentment and nurturance, eating becomes a burdensome ritual associated with disgust, guilt and shame. We can work both to unpack the origins of this hardship, and to establish a relationship with food that feels safe, comfortable, and fulfilling.
• Abuse, assault and violence: Having our safety threatened or compromised is a tremendously disruptive experience, with implications for our sense of self, and our capacity for trust and intimacy. Often the effects are far-reaching and long-lasting, extending well into new relationships, while playing out in our heads again and again. If you've experienced violence, abuse or an assault, we can work to help you make sense of the experience, lay responsibility where it rightfully belongs, restore your capacity for ease and re-establish faith in your right for safety.
• Grief and loss: Death is an inevitable part of life, but none of us is inherently equipped to understand or navigate it. This is especially true when we hold regrets about past interactions with a person, when we never realized the possibilities for our connection with them, or when we are distressed by the nature of a person's death. I see grief as a skill, one that we come to learn through careful reflection and attention to our own feelings and memories. Though we may not have opportunity to change the past, we can develop a new appreciation of it, and find a way of understanding a life in a way that brings comfort.
• Postpartum/perinatal depression: Welcoming a new child into this world is a momentous event, but that doesn't mean it feels that way for you. If you're experiencing sadness, confusion, or even anger surrounding the birth of your child, you may feel alone, unable to share your experience, and may feel added guilt for not sharing the feelings of joy that others often have for your pregnancy. I provide space for you to express yourself honestly and openly, while unpacking the complex nature of motherhood. Together, we can help you to balance the expectations and realities of your role as a mother, and uncover the strength to care for a new life. We can also work on helping you to communicate your needs, so that you can find added support from those you need it from the most.
• Addictions to sex or relationships: Relying on others for a sense of worth can lead to a host of problems, first and foremost with our understanding of our own intrinsic value. Together, we can work to restore your sense of personal purpose and identity, while maintaining an appreciation for the value that others bring to your life, and developing healthy and fulfilling relationships that serve your highest needs.
• Life transitions: At some point in our lives, we all experience transitions — big and small, planned and unplanned. The process of letting go of the familiar and openly facing the future can affect your life in a significant way, and even adjusting to positive changes can cause significant stress. Such transformation may be scary and difficult, but also carries great possibility. Together, we can help you move confidently into that possibility, or more fully articulate what is needed for that confidence.

If you're curious to know more, or want to know how we could work together to address another area, please feel free to reach out.