Zuzana Sakova, LPC
Licensed Professional Counselor
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I change”
- Karl Rogers
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places."
-Ernst Hemingway
Obstacles abound, we plow through life attempting all kinds of internal gymnastics to survive our circumstances, to feel safe, and in harmony with others. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor working with individuals and couples on individual growth and encouraging authentic relationships. Come as you are, everything is bearable if you are not alone with it.
'When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.'
- Victor Frankl
Therapeutic Approaches
Emotionally Focused Therapy, Gestalt, AEDP, Buddhist Psychology, Internal Family Systems, Collaborative Couples Therapy, CBT.
Therapy can help remove obstacles to your growth and allows you to become more engaged in life, although this is not always easy, fast or painless. Finding a more authentic self leads to a more meaningful life and towards more enhanced intimacy in your relationships. This can happen through increased awareness, deeper insight into your own functioning, greater self-acceptance, and increased compassion to self and others.
My clients matter to me a great deal and I strive to create a new approach for each patient as I explore their experiences, thoughts, behaviors, dreams or their innermost beliefs about self and others. Each of us has a unique story to tell and I aim to understand how anger, sadness or hurt are experienced and accommodated in our lives.
Whether you are in crisis, needing an immediate relief from anxiety or depression, or if you have an interest of exploring your deeper meaning, I'd consider your phone call a privilege.
Professional Trainings
2023- Internal Family Systems with Richard Schwartz
2021-22- AEDP Essential Skills 1 and Essentials Skills 2
2020- AEDP Immersion Course with Jennifer. Edlin and Karen Kranz
2018- present - Advanced Gestalt Therapy Group/Training
2017- Sex and Couples Therapy Training with Maegan Megginson
2016- Advanced Gestalt TherapyTraining with S. Zahm and J. Frew
2015- Emotionally Focused Therapy Core Skills, Yolanda von Hockauf
2014- Emotionally Focused Therapy Externship with Sue Johnson
2013- Collaborative Couples Therapy Training with Dan Wile
2012- Gestalt Therapy and Buddhist Psychology Training with Eva Gold and Steve Zahm
Individual Therapy
"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."
- Victor Frankl
Our attempts to adjust and change our circumstance work for a while and then we hit a wall. We ponder our adult relationships, get stuck with our ways of being, struggling with keeping ourselves and our relationships alive, feeling unsatisfied, angry, sometimes out of control. The lack of awareness can undermine us in what we do and how we appear in our work or our relationships with partners, parents, kids or coworkers. We all need another human being to see ourselves more clearly and see alternatives to our old habits as well as deepen our stories about ourselves and other. I offer that nonjudgmental stance and compassionate space to ponder your life and your situation in detail
Exploring these internal processes experientially and validating our external circumstances with another person allows for finishing old business, gaining calmness and clarity to our lives.
Couples Counseling
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
- Victor Frankl
I work with couples that suffer from emotional disconnection, frequent or escalated fighting, avoidance, grief, addictive behaviors, infidelity and difficulties being physically intimate. Couples therapy can allow partners to have important conversations about how they envision their relationship while gaining more clarity about each one's individual and relational needs.
I work using an attachment lens with Emotionally Focused Therapy and Collaborative Therapy. Understanding patterns of reactivity, slowing down the conversation, uncovering the underlying feelings and talking about unmet needs is at the heart of the EFT model. Together we can restructure these conversations by talking about what is going on under the reactivity or avoidance and creating new ways of connecting and getting one's needs voiced.
We strive for more harmony and/or more passion. We strive for more autonomy and/or more togetherness and we all make mistakes in the process of going about it. It is normal and human to do so. Healing makes relationships stronger and more connected. Therapy can repair bonds and heal old wounds.
This can be powerful and deeply connecting work. Don’t wait until it is too late.
Contact Me
Warm welcome to my practice.
I work Monday through Friday, 10am till 5pm. I am an out of network practitioner for all insurances. I can provide a superbill to you for all session to add to your claims to your insurance. My fee is $145 for a 50 minute individual session and $165 for 60 minute couples session.