Chicago IFS & EMDR Therapy
Quiet your inner critic. Find confidence.
We help people who are more comfortable thinking than feeling. They’ve always solved problems by working harder to feel worthy.
Our clients struggle as you do. Despite being independent, competent, and hard working, life is hard.
When they first come in, they put in really long hours to avoid being discovered as a fraud at work. They feel exhausted, broken, and unseen. They are frustrated that others tell them all the time that they're so smart and capable, when that isn't how they feel inside at all.
They feel anxious and detached in their relationships. There's a part of them that wants deeper connection and another part of them that panics at the very thought of that vulnerability.
Their bodies are carrying the weight of this tension. For some that looks like never being able to calm down enough to rest and sleep well. For others that could mean chronic pain, hormonal or autoimmune issues.
Their overthinking gets in the way of the life they want is so many ways. They aren't the kind of person they want to be. They don't feel like themselves anymore. And their confidence at work is tanking.
Before they start therapy, they worried that this was just what other people wanted from them. That they just needed to keep working hard to keep that inner citric in check. That if they stopped working so hard, everything in their lives would just fall apart. The shame was weighing so heavily on them.
You make sense, even if it doesn’t feel that way right now.
There are reasons why people begin overthinking or overworking. We find in our work with clients that these patterns are often connected to unmet needs or issues in childhood. This might have meant parents who were emotionally immature and put a lot of pressure on you to be perfect or more explicit forms of neglect or abuse.
Like our clients, you deserve to feel confident and at ease with who you are.
Meaningful, connected relationships are not out of your reach.
If you're ready to stop working so hard, we would love to help you get there.
Schedule a free intro call. You don't have to be alone in this.
Meet the Therapists
We're a small, intentional practice, which means you'll always know exactly who you're working with and why.
Meg Doster, LMFT
Meg works with individuals and couples who are really good at showing up for everyone else and are finally ready to show up for themselves. She creates the kind of space where people say things they've never said out loud before.
Elizabeth works with people who are exhausted by how hard they work to hold everything together and are ready to understand why. She's direct, warm, and genuinely curious about what's underneath the surface.
Elizabeth Bodett Dresser, LCPC
Our Approach
We don't do generic talk therapy. Every clinician at Still Oak is trained in approaches that work at a deeper level than insight alone. Because understanding your patterns and actually changing them are two very different things.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Most of us have a part that overthinks everything, a part that carries all the responsibility, a part that just keeps pushing harder, and a part that's really good at being mean to us when we fall short. IFS helps you get underneath those patterns — not to eliminate them, but to understand what they're protecting and finally give them some relief.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Some experiences don't stay in the past. They show up as anxiety, reactivity, or a sense of dread you can't quite explain. EMDR helps your brain finish processing what got stuck, so the past stops running the present.
As Featured In:
Questions We Hear in the Intro Call
-
Most therapy focuses on changing your thoughts by identifying the distorted ones, replacing them with more balanced ones, and hoping the feelings follow. For a lot of people, especially overthinkers, that approach hits a ceiling. You can intellectually know that you're not a failure and still feel like one. You can't think your way out of an emotion that isn't living in your thoughts to begin with. IFS and EMDR work at a different level with the parts of you and the experiences that are driving those feelings underneath the surface. That's why people often notice shifts here that years of traditional therapy couldn't produce.
-
High-functioning and struggling aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, they often go together. Many of our clients are successful by most measures and still feel like they're running on empty, can't turn their brain off, or are quietly terrified of what happens if they slow down. You don't have to be in crisis to deserve support. If the way you're coping is costing you more than it used to, that's worth paying attention to.
-
IFS is a way of understanding your inner world by getting curious about the parts of you that overthink, self-criticize, or shut down, and building a different relationship with them. EMDR works more directly with specific memories or experiences that are still stored in a way that keeps triggering you in the present. In practice, we often use both together. You don't need to figure out which one fits before you reach out, we’ll figure that out together.
-
Most clients notice something shift earlier than they expect. That said, we're not aiming for temporary relief, we're working toward lasting change in patterns that have often been around for a long time. That takes more than a few sessions. We'll be honest with you about what to expect from the beginning, and we check in regularly to make sure the work is actually moving.
-
Yes, and for the kind of work we do, it works better than most people expect. IFS and EMDR are both highly effective via telehealth, and research supports that virtual therapy produces outcomes comparable to in-person for anxiety, trauma, and burnout. Many clients find that being in their own space actually makes it easier to drop into the work. This also means we can work with anyone located in IL.
We think we're going to do some really good work together.
If you've made it this far, something here probably landed. Book a free 20-minute consult call and let's find out.
If resting feels weirdly hard, you’re not alone. I’ve put together a free Rest Menu to help you practice—enter your name and email and I’ll send it your way.