Specialty
Career Growth & Professional Confidence Therapy
When the barrier to your next step is not skill, it is what is happening inside of you.
Career struggles are often treated as strategy problems, something a better resume or plan should fix. But for many people the real obstacle is internal: doubt that undercuts you in visible moments, a sense of being a fraud despite the evidence, difficulty speaking up, fear of taking on more, or the disorienting feeling of having achieved what you aimed for and still feeling unfulfilled.
These experiences are common and rarely about competence. They tend to trace back to how you learned to see yourself, old experiences of criticism or failure, difficult workplace experiences, and questions of identity that a job title cannot answer alone.
This is psychotherapy, not career coaching. We will not write your plan or optimize your interview answers. We work on the emotional and psychological barriers, so that your decisions and your presence at work come from clarity rather than fear.
When those barriers ease, people often find the practical questions become much easier to answer.
Signs career growth & professional confidence may be affecting your life
- Persistent self-doubt at work despite a solid track record
- Feeling like an imposter who will eventually be found out
- Difficulty speaking up, being visible or advocating for yourself
- Fear of taking on more responsibility, or of advancement itself
- Uncertainty about your direction or professional identity
- Regret or rumination about past career decisions
- Feeling successful on paper but unfulfilled in reality
- A difficult workplace experience that still affects your confidence
- Holding back from starting the business or project you keep thinking about
- Work stress that follows you home and colors everything else
Our approach to career growth & professional confidence
Professional confidence problems usually have a history. Early messages about your worth, experiences of being criticized or overlooked, shame that attached itself to visibility, and unexamined questions of identity all shape how you show up at work. Our therapy starts by understanding your specific pattern rather than applying generic confidence advice.
Our work together will be individualized and integrative. It may center on identity and direction, on processing experiences that dented your confidence, or on the shame and self-criticism underneath imposter feelings. Somatic and experiential approaches can help when doubt lives in the body, and EMDR can help when specific past experiences still weigh on you.
The measure of progress is practical: speaking up costs less mentally, decisions get clearer, and your working life starts to reflect what you actually want rather than what feels safe and familiar.
Clinicians who specialize in career growth & professional confidence
EMDR · Hypnosis · Psychodynamic
Dr. Micah Zylstra works with the emotional and psychological side of professional life: identity concerns, feeling lost or stuck, life transitions, shame and work stress. He helps people understand what is actually underneath their doubt or dissatisfaction, so their career choices stop being organized around fear.
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ACT · EMDR · Hypnosis
Dr. Faiwiszewski helps people understand the deeper patterns that shape their choices, relationships, and sense of self. Through a collaborative, integrative approach, she helps patients move beyond fear and insecurity so these patterns no longer dictate their direction. The goal is a stronger sense of identity, greater freedom in how they respond, and more confidence in the life and work they want to build.
Full profile →Modalities
Therapy approaches that may help
We integrate these techniques, custom-tailored to you, in the order your nervous system can use first.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is this career coaching?
- No. This is psychotherapy focused on the emotional and psychological barriers affecting your professional life, such as self-doubt, imposter feelings, shame, fear of visibility and questions of identity. Practical career strategy is not the focus, though it often becomes easier once the internal obstacles ease.
- I am objectively doing well. Why do I still feel like a fraud?
- Imposter feelings are not corrected by evidence, because they are not really about evidence. They usually grow from earlier experiences that shaped how you interpret your own success. Therapy addresses that root, which is why it can help where accumulating more accomplishments has not.
- Can therapy help me figure out what I want to do with my career?
- Therapy will not hand you an answer, but it is often what makes the answer findable. Uncertainty about direction is frequently tangled with identity questions, fear and old expectations. As those untangle, your own preferences and inner voice become much easier to hear.
- What if a specific work experience shook my confidence?
- Difficult workplace experiences, such as harsh criticism, a public failure or a toxic environment, can leave a lasting mark on how safe it feels to be visible. These experiences respond well to treatment, including EMDR where a specific memory still carries a charge.
- How is this different from talking to a mentor or friend?
- Mentors offer advice from their experience. Therapy works on the patterns that advice cannot reach, such as why you discount praise, freeze in visible moments or keep deferring the move you want to make. The two can complement each other well and we recommend speaking to mentors and friends.
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