About Choosing Your Battles
Feel free to share this ‘secret.’
Therapy can be fun! You can even laugh in therapy! In fact, I highly recommend it.
Obviously, when you come to therapy, we’re there to talk about the hard things. But it is equally important to build on what is working, and for you to find the joy and the good things in your life.
One of the promises I make to my clients is that I will not leave you worse than I found you. So even if we have a session where we’re getting deep into some of the more painful parts of your life, I do my very best to save time at the end to talk about what you’re looking forward to, or what your kids or friends have done recently that you found hilarious.
Life can be ridiculous. So why not laugh at it a little?
What can therapy do for you?
Do you have a certain memory that packs a huge emotional punch? When you think of this time, do those feelings come flooding back like yesterday? Do tears well up in your eyes, or does anxiety sit on your chest like an elephant?
Therapy can take that emotional ‘punch’ away from the memory.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a magic wand to make it like it never happened, but I can help you turn the worst moments of your life into a feeling like any other day of the week.
Therapy with me works.
I use types of therapy that have been shown, with studies, to work for many people.
I use CBT (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy), EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy), and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) treatments.
While I love being flexible with each client’s individual needs and tailoring treatment to you, I’m not interested in throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing if you’ll get better. You deserve treatment that works.
It works if you do the work.
Wait, what does it mean to “do the work”? Ugh, that is such a vague phrase – right.
“Doing the work” means putting in the effort to make the changes discussed in therapy. So, maybe you realized that your guilt comes from a specific time in your life, or a particular person, during this week’s session. When that guilt shows up in your life next week, ideally, you’d be able to recognize it, and then eventually have an internal discussion with that guilt that it’s not helpful, and not relevant here, which would in turn let you release that emotion so you’d be back to feeling how you’d like to.
“Doing the work” is just a jargon-y way of saying you’re trying to do better.
This is all about You.
What I can offer you is time and space that’s all about you.
When I ask, “How are you?” I genuinely want to hear your honest answer. This is where you can talk without fear of being judged. (And, bonus: after doing therapy for 20 years, it’s truly hard to shock me.)
I am here for you – to listen, support, and challenge – because I honestly want the best for you.
About Alex Cooper, IMFT
I’m a bit of a unicorn.
I’m a bit of a unicorn. At 16 years old, I decided I wanted to be a Marriage and Family Therapist (and we weren’t even a licensed profession in Ohio yet!), and I have never wavered since.
I did everything in my power to become a therapist as fast as I could, because I wanted to start making a difference right away.
I’m absolutely enthralled with how therapy can change people’s lives. I love building this unique, transformative kind of connection with each client.
At 16 years old, I decided I wanted to be a Marriage and Family Therapist (and we weren’t even a licensed profession in Ohio yet!), and I have never wavered since.
I did everything in my power to become a therapist as fast as I could, because I wanted to start making a difference right away.
I’m absolutely enthralled with how therapy can change people’s lives. I love building this unique, transformative kind of connection with each client.
Therapy is personal.
Therapy isn’t just a professional calling for me, though.
It’s also personal. I’m raising three neurodivergent kids, two of whom are on the spectrum. There’s always some sort of teaching moment around here.
We’ve navigated different kinds of psychological testing, worked with school systems to get ETRs, WEPs, IEPs, and 504s, and even have a service dog for one of the boys.
What’s my mission?
My main guiding principles in life are to ‘leave the world better than you found it,’ and to choose my battles.
Leaving the world better than I found it is all about helping others and doing what I can to improve someone else’s life.
Choosing my battles might be the hardest lesson I’ve learned. Letting go is not exactly my forte. But once I learned to accept that I don’t have to control every detail, life got so much easier. (Especially as a mom.)
Control and acceptance are common themes in many lives, and I love getting to work with people on their journeys with them!
Here are my bona fides.
I did my undergrad at Ohio State and received my master’s from the University of Maryland. I trained in EMDR through the Humanitarian Assistance Program.
I started my career working with families and teens who were involved with probation and/or Children’s Protection in the Columbus area. I also traveled around the state working with middle-aged adults who were re-integrating into communities after being in nursing homes.
There were a few years in there when I stayed home with our three kids, and a brief time when I saw clients at a community college before I started my own private practice.
And here is the obligatory ‘in my free time.’
Life is funny. I never thought I’d live out in the country with chickens, bunnies, and dogs. But here I am!
I also enjoy gardening, singing show tunes from the 90s and 2000s, playing outside with my kids, hanging out with my husband, and volunteering with the church and Scouts.