Nancy Vanderheide, Psy.D., Psy.D.

Nancy Vanderheide, Psy.D., Psy.D.

Although my clients seek therapy for help with their own, personally unique, concerns and dilemmas, at heart they all desire the same thing -- that our work together will lead to greater enjoyment of the gifts life has to offer.  As a Licensed Clinical Psychologist with advanced training in contemporary, psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, I help my clients achieve their goals through personal growth and the enhanced capacity for emotional connectedness to both themselves and the other people in their lives.  By discovering the patterns of relating they bring into their relationships and exploring the places in which they feel unhappy, stuck or blocked, real emotional growth takes place.  

For over 25 years, I have studied, taught and written about the ways our relatedness with ourselves and others shapes, maintains, and transforms our deepest hopes and fears.  My approach reflects my belief that we are inherently relational beings who, from our earliest days, find ourselves searching out and responding to others.  For better or worse, our sense of who we are, our ways of being in relationships and our beliefs and expectations about the way relationships work are continually shaped through the kind of relational experiences we have.   Our relationships have the power to either modify the ways in which we typically enter new relationships, leading to greater gratification, or to reinforce and, sometimes, strengthen our customary and unsatisfying patterns of relating.  I strongly believe people are capable of astonishing personal growth that leads to profound changes in their lives.

My 25 years of experience leads me to believe that no one is fated to remain chained to maladaptive or destructive patterns of dealing with themselves and others.  Our time together allows my clients to leave behind old, maladaptive relational patterns and develop more effective ones, opening them to living fuller, happier lives.