Lindsy Hively, LMHC

psychotherapist with a decade of experience in private practice, trained in psychedelic harm reduction and integration in the Greater Boston area

I provide therapy that helps individuals locate and trust a wise part of themselves that has been out of reach. Often this is due to developmental or attachment trauma from childhood, the result of which is a confusing distrust and dislike of oneself. I provide a safe container in which to explore these often unconscious realms while guiding clients through a reparenting process. I also teach proper breathing and attunement to the signals our bodies provide us, helping to form a stronger mind-body cohesion for regulation, healing and growth.

About

I have always had a knack for being able to see the sweet, vulnerable and young child in people, which renders me inherently compassionate. However, self-compassion does not come as easily, which at times has made my work as a therapist more challenging.

This has led me on a journey of self-healing full of peaks and valleys. While I have been a nurturer in this work, seeing through individuals' defenses and grown up exteriors to the child within them, I realize that it is equally important to practice that for myself as well.

The way we relate to "difficult" parts of ourselves, i.e. those that we are often at odds with, mirrors how we relate to other people's "difficult" parts.

A sense of humor is a saving grace and I try to foster this in session after a rapport has been established.

I look at this work as holistic: taking care of yourself includes all the ways! It is important to be curious and thoughtful but also, sometimes, just to be with what is, breathing in and out. This alone is a small miracle.

I started my career working on a mobile crisis counseling team, transitioning into seeing children and families in clinics. I learned that people act out as well as in, sabotaging relationships as unconscious reenactments of their own early caregiver relational dynamics. Negative self talk stemming from negative core beliefs about themselves and perfectionism are common issues. Other manifestations I have come to be familiar with are impulsivity and rigidity, often stemming from big feeling states like anger with underlying sadness and anxiety.

I became curious about how drugs and alcohol fit into these ways to cope and worked at detox facilities as well as an intensive outpatient program leading groups. There I aimed to help patients transcend their moment-to-moment circumstances, including dysregulation in their bodies, through meditation and connection to each other. It was beautiful to witness new connections being formed internally and externally.

The practice of being present as opposed to dissociated is game changer, especially for those whose personalities formed while unhealthy dynamics prevailed in their homes.

I invite you to be curious about yourself at all the stages of your life, to welcome self-compassion and reparenting of your inner child, and through this to relate to yourself and others in new ways. Together, we can transcend the pain.

About

"A person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits."

- Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person: A Therapists View of Psychotherapy

"If you consider your thoughts, emotions, urges, and impulses to be coming from an inner landscape that's best understood as a kind of internal family, populated by sub-personalities, many of whom are childlike and are suffering, then it makes more sense to take that next step of comforting and holding these inner selves rather than just observing and objectifying them."

― Richard C. Schwartz, Internal Family Systems Therapy

The principle aim of psychotherapy is not to transport one to an impossible state of happiness, but to help (the client) acquire steadfastness and patience in the face of suffering.

- Carl Jung