Services
Individual Therapy in Nashville
Whether you’re seeking personalized therapy sessions in Nashville or you’d like to meet one-on-one online from anywhere in Tennessee, the therapists at Music City Psych are ready to hear you and help you. Perhaps you are experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression, or you are just feeling restless and distracted as you go about your day. Maybe you’re facing a difficult transition at work, increased conflicts at home, or distressing issues in other important relationships. Or, like so many people, you’re wrestling with a recent or long-ago trauma that’s interfering with your ability to move forward and fully embrace life in the present.
Whatever issues you may be facing, you’ll find expert, compassionate care at Music City Psych. Our therapists are dedicated to fostering safe, confidential therapeutic relationships that help our clients learn strategies to approach persistent challenges from new and creative angles. We help you face life’s messy problems, clarify your values and priorities, increase self-awareness, and implement practices that shift your thoughts and habits to help you live your best life.
Meet in-person or online. We offer the option to meet with your therapist online. Video sessions are held through a HIPPA-protected platform.
A practical approach to therapy
Individual therapy at Music City Psych in Nashville is designed to provide you with support and guidance to handle life’s stresses well. Located just minutes from Vanderbilt, Music Row, Forest Hills, and Sylvan Park, our therapists are experienced in a variety of therapeutic modalities. We integrate effective counseling strategies that fit the individual needs and personalities of our clients. Our approach to therapy is compassionate, dynamic, and pragmatic.
Psychodynamic therapy starts with the understanding that all human beings develop coping patterns in response to stress, trauma, and disruptive life events. We form these patterns starting in childhood and continuing into our adult lives. Our various coping strategies may be helpful for getting us through a certain stage of life, but in the long run, they often become counterproductive and even detrimental to our ability to heal trauma, grow through challenges, and achieve our goals. By understanding your temperament and past experiences, our therapists help you identify and make sense of the specific behavioral patterns that are impeding your access to productivity, joy, and personal fulfillment.
We know that each individual approaches therapy from a different starting place. Some clients come to their first therapy session knowing exactly what their priorities are and what they hope to work on. Others can’t articulate clear goals or perhaps even identify their main source of distress — they simply know they aren’t living the life they want to live. Both of these situations and everything in between are accepted and welcome. We encourage you to show up to therapy just as you are, allowing us to meet you where you are.
Counseling that’s tailored for you
Our therapists are committed to getting to know and understand you as an individual. At your first session, your therapist will ask you key questions to gain insight into your background and your current life situation. We take a nonjudgmental approach to building this therapeutic relationship, offering a space for you to speak freely about whatever issues are causing you anxiety, pain, frustration, or confusion. We understand some people can speak about these things more easily and that, for others, it’s a struggle. We move at a pace that challenges you to dig into the important issues in a way that doesn’t overwhelm you.
As your therapist gets to know you better, they will begin to identify repeating patterns in your past and present life experiences. You’ll be invited to explore these patterns more deeply, noticing attitudes and behaviors that are holding you back from deeper personal growth and fulfillment. Your therapist will offer you tools to confront these obstacles as they manifest in your daily life, allowing you to respond to them in healthier ways. Throughout the counseling relationship, you’ll work with your therapist to approach unproductive thoughts and feelings with increased mindfulness, gradually minimizing their impact and ongoing influence over you.
Throughout these exercises, you’ll also be working with your therapist to clarify your personal values. Your values encompass your deeper priorities, passions, drives: whatever motivates you and points you toward fulfillment and growth. Our values are often obscured by undue feelings of obligation to what we think we “should” want or consider important. By identifying and embracing your true values, you can shed confusing external narratives, focus on what matters to you, and act in alignment with your authentic self.
If you’re looking for individual counseling sessions in Nashville and are ready to begin a journey of growth and self-discovery, we’d love to hear from you!
Frequently Asked Questions
Is therapy the right next step for me?
It’s easy to overthink this question or put off therapy because you’re waiting for that moment in life when the answer will seem obvious. And some people do experience a moment like that, often when they are facing serious life transitions or when ongoing issues escalate abruptly. We frequently wait to get counseling until our mental health struggles or relationship issues become too big to ignore.
If you’re unsure about going to a therapist, keep in mind that it can be incredibly helpful to get therapy before things reach a breaking point. Addressing low-level depression or anxiety early on gives you the tools to begin coping in healthier ways before you burn out or encounter a full-on crisis. The constructive practices you learn in regular therapy sessions can help you proactively take on job dissatisfaction, family conflicts, or just that hard-to-pinpoint feeling of being stuck or unfulfilled. And when you do encounter an unexpected loss or setback down the road, having an established therapeutic relationship in place provides much-needed support.
What type of therapy do you practice, and how does it work?
Our counseling is rooted in Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), which encompasses a scientific, mindfulness, and values-based approach. We also draw on aspects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), psychodynamic therapy, and other complementary practices in order to have a robust set of psychological resources we can apply to individual needs.
Using ACT as a general framework, we help empower you to identify which things in life you do and don’t have control over. By facing and accepting what you can’t change, you begin to make peace with those facets of life instead of striving unproductively to control the uncontrollable. Building on this foundation of acceptance, we help you refocus your energy on what is within your power to change. We’ll work with you to increase mindfulness and self-awareness, cultivating a state of being that is grounded in the present and intentional about the future.
Approaching daily life with this forward-facing mindset lets you more successfully commit to practices designed to bring about the changes you desire. Increased commitment and follow-through begins to establish a foundation of new habits and attitudes that open doors to continued growth and self-awareness. By examining the basics and grounding yourself in healthy practices in line with your true priorities, you’ll discover opportunities that weren’t visible from inside a cloudy or reactive state of mind.
I have good friends – do I need a therapist?
A lot of us have had this same thought: I talk to my friends or partner about everything, and we’re really close. Why go to therapy and explain all my life issues again to a stranger? In fact, many people don’t really understand how different a therapy session is from having coffee with a friend until they go and experience it for themselves.
There are a couple of overlapping reasons why therapy is different from a coffee date. First, therapists can do what friends cannot, in that your therapist is not your friend. Our close friends are crucial support in times of crisis, and strong friendships are generally essential to good mental health. But by the same token, friends can’t approach each other with clinical objectivity. By contrast, the professional boundaries a therapist maintains with their clients allow them to operate as a pragmatic and incisive third party. Our therapists are compassionate while remaining laser-focused on their roles of inquiring about pertinent issues and co-creating real solutions with our clients.
Second, established professional therapists have years of advanced education, dedicated training, and clinical experience discovering and addressing the root causes of behavior. This allows them to hone in on subtle cues, ask expert follow-up questions, and spot important patterns. A skilled therapist often gets to the heart of the matter by identifying key pieces of the puzzle you’ve been missing.
Will therapy work for my issues?
It’s tempting to think that our problems are too unique for someone else to understand or help us with. And it’s true in a sense that each person’s problems are specific to their individual situation. The patterns of behavior we fall into in response to our issues, however, are not unique. Therapy can help us because therapists are experts in the underlying thought traps and behavioral patterns that keep so many people stuck in harmful or unproductive cycles.
Think of psychotherapy as a toolbox and skilled therapists as people who help their clients sort through and find the right tools. Everyone’s life project looks different in the specifics: certain thoughts and behaviors need to be deconstructed, and beneficial new habits need to be built. Whatever this process looks like for you, a skilled counselor can help you assemble your therapy toolkit. Practicing with these tools over time allows you to learn to use them more creatively and effectively, incrementally constructing your life in line with your passions and goals. Each individual result will look different, but the methods that were used will have a lot of overlap.
How often do people see a therapist?
It varies widely, from a few months to many years. Some clients seeking to improve their daily habits or address a transitional life phase will discover the tools they need to do those things, implement them, and feel that this is enough. Other people are working through past trauma or intense and ongoing issues. They will likely find that a long-term, incremental approach to therapy is necessary to make the life changes they hope to make.
Most clients will see a therapist weekly or biweekly. The important thing to remember is that therapy isn’t a race you’re trying to win or a degree program you’re trying to finish. We each face a different set of life challenges, including many factors that are outside our immediate control. This means we also face different timelines when developing the skills and resilience needed to face and work through these challenges.
How are Music City Psych therapists trained and licensed?
Our therapists all hold master’s degrees and are board-certified in the state of Tennessee. Our founder, David Pearl, is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) with licenses in both Tennessee and New York. Rachel and Hope are licensed professional counselors (LPCs) who also hold the Mental Health Services Provider (MHSP) certification.
Are you accepting clients outside the Nashville area?
Yes, we offer both in-person and telehealth options, allowing us to accommodate clients throughout Nashville and anywhere else in Tennessee. For in-person therapy sessions, our office is located near the Belle Meade and Green Hills neighborhoods, with convenient access to The Gulch, Music Row, Hillsboro Village, Brentwood, and downtown Nashville. Additionally, David is dual-licensed in Tennessee and New York, and Rachel is dual-licensed to practice in both Tennessee and Florida.
How do I prepare for my first counseling session?
Once you contact us, we’ll set you up with intake forms and walk you through the paperwork. If you’ll be attending therapy via telehealth, you’ll receive an email with links to sign into your confidential online session with your therapist at the scheduled appointment time.
Besides that, all you need to do is show up to your first therapy session with an open mind and a desire to learn and explore. If it makes you feel better prepared, you can make a list of questions or things you want to be sure to mention to your therapist, but this is definitely not necessary. Just getting to your first therapy session is a great accomplishment. We’ll help guide things from there!
