Individual Therapy with Eve Ruby, Therapist

Individual Therapy: A Personalized Path to Healing and Self-Discovery

Embarking on the journey of individual therapy can be a transformative experience, providing you with the opportunity to explore your emotions, challenges, and personal growth in a safe and supportive environment.

With Eve Ruby as your therapist, you can expect a personalized approach that is attuned to your unique needs and experiences.

Eve's compassionate and trauma-informed therapy practice is built on a foundation of empathy, understanding, and inclusivity. By creating a safe space that celebrates diversity and individuality, Eve guides clients in reconnecting with their inherent wisdom, gaining a greater sense of freedom and agency, and cultivating resilience for life's challenges.

Whether you are seeking support for specific issues or looking to deepen your self-awareness, individual therapy with Eve Ruby offers a tailored approach to help you navigate your journey towards healing and personal growth.

Addressing Your Concerns:

Common Issues Explored in Therapy

  • Perfectionism is a personality trait associated with striving to be flawless and often involves being critical of imperfections (Flett & Hewitt, 2002). Although perfectionism can be a healthy motivator in moderation, excessive perfectionism may cause stress and diminish the chances of success. Therefore, the ability to distinguish between healthy (adaptive) and unhealthy (maladaptive) perfectionism may help us understand whether we are helping or hurting ourselves.  

  • Adoption is the social, emotional, and legal process in which children who will not be raised by their birth parents become full and permanent legal members of another family while maintaining genetic and psychological connections to their birth family. 

    There are seven core issues that resurface often in the lives of adoptees, which you can learn more about here

  • Grief is the reaction you have to a loss in your life. This loss can refer to a death but it can also refer to the loss of physical or cognitive abilities or the loss of something that was routine in your life such as a job. 

    In addition to the emotional expression of grief, grief can be expressed in physical, behavioral, social, and cognitive ways. Click here to learn more about grief.

  • Attachment is the deep emotional bond formed between a child and their caregiver. The quality of this attachment is critical for the emotional and social development of children. In addition, it has an enduring effect on the nature of future relationships and wellbeing. 

    Attachment theory explains how this bond develops and how different styles of attachment are formed. A secure style of attachment leads to the best outcomes for people. Secure attachment lays the foundations for resilience and stable, positive relationships in adulthood. It is most likely to develop when caregivers respond sensitively to the child’s needs and provide reliable and consistent care. 

    For various reasons, when children do not receive sufficient care, they may not develop a secure attachment style. This can adversely affect relationships and mental health in both childhood and adulthood. There is no quick, complete fix for attachment issues. However, with appropriate support and a skillful therapist, it is possible to develop positive, healthy relationships.

  • Burnout is most often defined as the physical, emotional, or mental exhaustion accompanied by decreased motivation, lowered performance, and negative attitudes toward oneself and others. It results from performing at a high level until stress and tension, especially from extreme and prolonged physical or mental exertion or an overburdening workload, take their toll. The word was first used in this sense in 1975 by U.S. psychologist Herbert J. Freudenberger (1926–1999) in referring to workers in clinics with heavy caseloads. Burnout is most often observed in professionals who work in service-oriented vocations (e.g., social workers, teachers, correctional officers) and experience chronic high levels of stress. It can be particularly acute in therapists or counselors doing trauma work, who feel overwhelmed by the cumulative secondary trauma of witnessing the effects. Burnout is also experienced by athletes when continually exposed to stress associated with performance without commensurate rewards or rest.

  • Trauma is the response to a deeply distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope, causes feelings of helplessness, diminishes their sense of self and their ability to feel the full range of emotions and experiences. 

     While there are no objective criteria to evaluate which events will cause post-trauma symptoms, circumstances typically involve the loss of control, betrayal, abuse of power, helplessness, pain, confusion and/or loss. The event does not need to rise to the level of war, natural disaster, nor personal assault to affect a person profoundly and alter their experiences. Traumatic situations that cause post-trauma symptoms vary quite dramatically from person to person. Indeed, trauma is very subjective and it is important to bear in mind that it is defined more by how someone experiences a situation then the severity of the situation itself. 

    Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric disorder that may occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event, series of events or set of circumstances. An individual may experience this as emotionally or physically harmful or life-threatening and may affect mental, physical, social, and/or spiritual well-being. Examples include natural disasters, serious accidents, terrorist acts, war/combat, rape/sexual assault, historical trauma, intimate partner violence and bullying. 

    People with PTSD have intense, disturbing thoughts and feelings related to their experience that last long after the traumatic event has ended. They may relive the event through flashbacks or nightmares; they may feel sadness, fear or anger; and they may feel detached or estranged from other people. People with PTSD may avoid situations or people that remind them of the traumatic event, and they may have strong negative reactions to something as ordinary as a loud noise or an accidental touch.

  • Although a person’s sexual or romantic orientation or gender identity may not be a source of distress, people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, asexual, or any other orientation or gender identity may find that the social stigma of living as a minority is a source of stress or anxiety.

    Despite rapidly growing cultural acceptance of diverse sexual and romantic orientations and gender identifications, oppression, discrimination, and marginalization of LGBTQ people persists. Coping with discrimination and oppression, coming out to one’s family, and sorting out an “authentic” sense of self in the face of social expectations and pressures can lead to higher levels of depression, anxiety, substance use, and other mental health concerns for LGBTQ people. 

    Research shows that youth who identify as LGBTQ are at an increased risk of suicidal ideation and self-harm, particularly when they also experience discrimination based on their sexual or gender identity. According to a 2007 survey, students who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender were almost ten times as likely to have experienced bullying and victimization at school and more than twice as likely to have considered suicide as their heterosexual, non-transgender classmates within the previous year. 

    Discrimination may take several forms, including social rejection, verbal and physical bullying, and sexual assault, and repeated episodes will likely lead to chronic stress and diminished mental health. Perceived discrimination—the expectation of discrimination—may also lead to diminished mental health. LGBTQ adults, too, may be subject to similar forms of harassment, as well as discrimination with regards to housing, employment, education, and basic human rights.

“Having lived experience as a biracial, queer woman, I aim to hold space for the complexities of your story and navigate a path to understanding your experiences and their impact.”

Eve

Testimonial

What client say about us

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

  • My full hourly fee is $150, and the sliding scale ranges from $80-$150 depending upon your financial situation. If you are interested in utilizing the sliding scale, please talk with Eve about this option during your consultation.

  • There are many different ways that people arrive at the decision to engage in therapy. Sometimes it’s because we’re struggling in relationships, in our job or with low self-image & self-esteem. Others may be struggling with addictions, anxiety or depression. No matter the path, most folks arrive to therapy with a common experience: feeling, frustration, isolation and uncertainty in how to move forward. If you are open and curious about more helpful ways of thinking relating and being, therapy could be a useful tool.

  • Sessions are $150 for a 50-min session. Eve Ruby Therapy offers sliding scale fees- if you are interested in learning more about the sliding scale, please ask Eve during your initial consultation.

  • Therapy sessions are typically 50 minutes long and most clients come in on a weekly or every-other-week cadence.

  • Yes! I use IvyPay, which is a HIPAA-compliant system that allows me to text you a link to pay with a debit/credit card securely.

  • No preparation is necessary for your first therapy session- but if you want to, you can brainstorm some things that you want to get out of therapy.  

  • Each individual’s situation is different. Some people attend therapy for one session, three sessions, a few months or a few years. The length of time it takes to achieve successful outcomes is not one-size-fits all. For some people, short term treatment is enough and for others who have more extensive treatment goals, longer term services may make more sense. There is no right or wrong amount of time. It all depends on your unique circumstances and needs.

  • Most folks experience a mixture of fear, anxiety and anticipation when they arrive at their first therapy appointment. This is totally normal. Before the session, I will provide you with some necessary paperwork to complete. Then comes the actual day. I usually start the session off by greeting a new client, asking about your day, just general small talk. I do this to help you feel like you’re easing your way into a conversation with a total stranger about “deeper stuff”. After that, we will go over the paperwork you completed and take time to answer any questions you might have. We will talk about what brings you to therapy and what goals you may have. Before we end, we may discuss some things to consider until our next session. We’ll schedule our next meeting and go from there. The first session is really a chance for both of us to see if we will be a good fit for one another. If we are, we’ll eventually find ourselves in a relaxed, familiar rhythm that will allow you to focus on your therapeutic journey.

  • Right now, Eve Ruby Therapy is in-network for Optum for Georgia residents, and out of network for everyone else. However, we do provide superbills to submit to your insurance to make use of out-of-network benefits; please call your insurance company to confirm that you have out-of-network mental health benefits. 

  • Appointments may be canceled or rescheduled with more than 24 hours before appointment without a late fee. Appointments that are missed or canceled without 24 hours notice will be charged the full appointment cost.