There is a difference between knowing what is wrong and actually changing it. Most people who come to therapy are not lacking insight. They can describe what happens, when it started, and what it costs them. And still, things stay the same.
That is not a failure of effort or intelligence. It is how psychological change actually works. Understanding opens the door. What happens in the therapeutic relationship is what makes it possible to walk through.
My role is to work with you in a way that is honest, steady, and genuinely useful. Not to reflect your experience back to you indefinitely, but to help you do something with it.
How I Work
My work is grounded in psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapy, with particular attention to attachment, personality, developmental trauma, and the sense of self. In couples work I draw from PACT, a rigorous approach to partnership that focuses on moment-to-moment experience, nervous system response, and how each person functions under stress.
I also bring neurobiology and intrapsychic structure into the work. How a person is organized internally, how that organization formed, and how it lives in the body are all part of what shapes how someone relates and where change becomes possible.
The goal is change that goes deeper than symptom management or coping. Change that shows up in how you feel in your own skin, how you move through relationships, and what becomes available to you that wasn’t before.
Dr. Nicole McGuffin is a psychotherapist for individuals and couples, with a focus on attachment, developmental trauma, and the patterns that shape relationships and the sense of self.
Individual Psychotherapy, PACT Couples & Relationship Therapy
