You've mastered the art of holding it together.

And it's exhausting. When a new client tells me she has anxiety, my first thought isn't about the anxiety — it's about what's underneath it. Because almost always, there's something being held down. Something the busyness and the achieving and the performing has been keeping at bay.

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What I'm actually thinking

"Most anxiety treatment gets it wrong because it's focused on coping with it — not understanding it. Understanding why it's there. Where it came from."

That's not a knock on coping skills. They matter, and I use them too. But stopping there is like treating the alarm without looking for the fire.

For a lot of high-achieving women, the performance is the coping. The perfectionism. The busyness. If you're always doing and achieving and managing — you never have to slow down long enough to feel what's underneath. You never have to confront the fear that you won't be loved unless you earn it first.

That's the thing nobody says out loud. That's where we go.

What we actually work on

Anxiety doesn't always look like anxiety.

In high-achieving women it often looks like something more respectable — perfectionism, overworking, hyper-independence. Here's what I'm tracking underneath.

The perfectionism

Not a personality trait — a strategy. We look at what it's been protecting you from all this time.

The people-pleasing

Saying yes when you mean no, and the slow resentment that builds when you can't stop.

The relational dread

Bracing for the worst, over-explaining, needing reassurance that you haven't done something wrong.

The burnout

What it actually costs to perform at that level for that long — and how to come back from it.

"I'm not a blank screen. I show emotion, I attune to what's happening, I get genuinely excited when you have a breakthrough. I build real rapport — and I take my time doing it. Because that relationship is actually how the work happens."

— Tyler Ricks, LPC-Associate

My approach

I draw from psychodynamic therapy, AEDP, and NARM — which means we work with what's underneath the anxiety, and we work with it in real time, in your body, not just in your head. CBT is valuable and I help with surface-level symptoms too. But I go deeper. I want to understand why the anxiety is there, not just help you cope with the experience of having it.

Psychodynamic AEDP NARM Relational Depth-oriented

Real questions

Before we start.

Are you the right fit for me?

I work really well with analytical people, emotional people — anyone who's genuinely curious about themselves and open to exploring what's going on underneath. If you're looking for a quick fix or a structured skills-only approach, I'm probably not your person. That's genuinely okay. The free consultation is how we figure it out together.

How is this different from CBT I've tried before?

CBT is valuable and I use some of it too — but I'm more interested in understanding why the anxiety is there than just managing the experience of having it. If you've done skills-based work and still feel stuck, the gap between those two approaches is usually where I come in.

Do you offer in-person sessions?

Yes — I see clients in person on Mondays in Kyle, TX, and virtually Monday through Thursday across the state of Texas.

Do you take insurance?

I'm private pay. I can provide superbills for out-of-network reimbursement and accept HSA and FSA cards. Full details on the Work With Me page.

You don't have to keep white-knuckling it.

A free 15-minute call. We talk about where you are
and whether this feels like a fit. That's it.

Book a free consult → About Tyler

Virtual across Texas · $125/session · Sliding scale available