Today we’d like to introduce you to Caroline Hammond
Hi Caroline, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My journey to becoming a psychotherapist was fueled by own personal therapy work and desire to do meaningful work that engaged my intellect, curiosity, and interests. I was always reading books about our inner lives written by therapists and philosophers outside of work as I was trying to discern next steps in my career. It was actually my therapist who suggested I should consider doing therapy and that gave me an opening to start looking at graduate schools.
I am a career changer. Prior to going to graduate school for counseling, I worked in consulting, in the non profit space, for a large university system and while that work seemed valuable, I always felt that I wanted to do something else but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what that something else was.
It is a long process to become a therapist with lots of appropriate gate keeping along the way. I have to remind myself how far I’ve come from before I started graduate school to now being fully licensed with my own practice. I love working with clients. It takes such courage to start therapy. I have so much respect for my clients and people who choose to do therapy. I tell my cleints that the inner world is “ecologically sensitve territory” (a term I heard from Richard Schwartz, the founder of Internal Family Systems) and we need to do the work in manageable bites. It’s hard work and that’s why it’s so important to do it with a skilled and caring therapist. We aren’t meant to do this work alone.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There have definitely been struggles along the way of being a therapist. I am a career changer and was in my early 30’s when I decided to go to graduate school for counseling. I worked full time while I was in grad school. Those were long days. I would work my corporate job during the day and then go to class at night. Each day was intense but it taught me to take life one day at a time. Throughout the three and half years of grad school, I developed a strong belief in myself – that I could do hard things and to really break down big challenges to the smallest unit possible and just take the next right step. I deeply believe that we are all energy and sometimes we don’t know what we are building towards but if we keep taking the next step, it will build into something bigger and meaningful.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a psychotherapist. I am passionate about practicing therapy “experientially.” That means that rather than just talking about what’s happening in your life, we are trying to safely tap into get to know parts of the client to better understand what is generating the unwanted symptoms. Rather than trying to build up how you would rather be, we are trying to deeply listen to why these patterns or emotions exist and then create enough internal safety and trust so that they don’t have to manifest in these problematic ways. My hope for clients is to facilitate deep and lasting change in their lives. I believe that clients are the expert on their lives and I am not trying to interpret or counteract what is happening but to gently accompany them to build more trust internally.
I like to say that our inner world is ecologically sensitive terrain and together, we can move through this with care and deep listening. I work with clients to find out how we can put to rest the problem patterns in how you experience life which can lead to lasting and transformational change. I believe that there are underlying reasons why we experience certain pains in life and with my accompaniment, we can get to the root of what is causing the distress in your life.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I moved to Austin with my family when I was in middle school. As one of those long time residents, I have seen the city change both in sad ways, losing “old Austin” gems and in fun ways – better restaurants than when I grew up here. I love that when I am out and about, I run into old friends. I hope Austin never loses that sense of community. I love the access to the outdoors. I love to hike and swim and Austin hasn’t lost that.
Pricing:
- $150 60 minute individual session
- $185 60 minute couples session
- $50 group session
Contact Info:
- Website: https://carolinehammondpsychotherapy.com/
- Other: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/caroline-hammond-austin-tx/1062932
