About My Services

“I’m ready to get started – now what?”

Let’s be honest. The process of working with a psychologist seems like it’s mysterious by design. The same policies that protect your privacy also mean that most people’s best guess about what happens during an appointment comes from TV and movies.

Working with me, you’ll see from the beginning that “my services” are our services. If you think about it, we create the services together as we complete our work. You’ll get the best results when you dive in as an active partner.

Diving into therapy can be intimidating at first, but remember, this is a role you were born to play. We will always go at your pace and stay focused on what’s most important to you. You don’t have to “have it all figured out” – or any of it – to start.

All that’s needed is to come as your whole and authentic self. Whatever that looks like for you is as it should be exactly!

There’s no point in sugarcoating it.

Facing discomfort is almost always part of the process of doing our work together. But you’re probably already experiencing some pain if you’re reading this!

Feeling uncomfortable makes sense to me because we tend not to get too worked up about things that aren’t important to us. I feel privileged to work with my clients as they process some of the most challenging times of their lives.

Because this type of work is deeply personal to you, I believe that you deserve to do that work with someone you feel completely comfortable with – someone who takes the time to get you honestly.

Understanding my clients is vital to me. Therefore, I want feedback from each of them to know how our sessions are going. And I value building and maintaining trust with my clients so much that I post the actual stats here on the website and update it regularly.

During the previous appointment, Dr. O’Dell appeared attentive and attuned to me.

During the previous appointment, Dr. O’Dell displayed empathy and respect for me.

*Based on 108 individual ratings. Last updated: 1/29/2023

We’re here to achieve outcomes.

Some of those outcomes you can imagine, and others you have not yet imagined.

You are so much more than the problems you face! Don’t get me wrong – we will spend time figuring out what makes you feel stuck and do something about that. My point is that it’s too easy to narrow our focus on “the problem” and miss many other essential things hiding in plain sight.

For one thing, it’s easy to forget that the discomfort you feel about your stuck points is like the other side of the coin of the things in life that matter the most to you. So, as we dive in, we’ll also get clear on what matters most and keep that in the front of our minds as we begin our work of transforming the discomfort into more meaning, purpose, and vitality in your life.

You may wonder, “I can think of a lot I want to change, but what about the change I have yet to imagine?”

Goals influence our motivation.

Well, it turns out that how we frame our goals matters quite a lot for how our motivation changes as we get closer to reaching them. Focusing on bringing more of what you want (versus getting rid of what you don’t wish to) leads to better outcomes.

Here’s a quick example about health/fitness goals to illustrate why this subtle change makes such a big difference. If we set a goal to “lose 20 pounds in 6 months,” we focus on getting rid of something we don’t want (excess weight). There’s nothing wrong with losing excess weight! However, it so happens that there are some unintended consequences of working on a goal framed like that.

First, the closer we are to reaching the goal, the less motivation we tend to have to reach it because losing the last 5 pounds isn’t as big of a “problem” as losing the first 15 pounds. Second, it’s easy to imagine how you could reach the goal early but gain the weight back or even lose 15 pounds and still feel like you failed because you didn’t hit the “magic number” of 20, which is no good!

Third, there are many ways to lose 20 pounds that are not healthy or sustainable, and this isn’t setting you up for long-term success. I could go on, but you get the point about the downsides of “elimination goals.”

Some goals inspire more transformational change than others.

What if, instead, we started by asking, “What are some things you could do that would improve your health and fitness?” For starters, we would be more creative about focusing on things we could do differently to improve anything related to our health and fitness. It’s easy to see there are many right ways when we think about it this way!

It would also be easier to see that the changes wouldn’t include fad diets or sketchy practices that aren’t good for our bodies long term. And because we can only do so much at a time, we’re set up to pick things to change that feel like they have the best chance at making the most significant difference.

Do you see how this subtle shift can promote working smart and not just hard? And because we are now thinking about building more significant patterns, we’re also less likely to take on too much change at once or that doesn’t fit our situation because we’re intentionally aiming for sustainable change.

Again, I could go on about the upsides of this approach. I’ll move on instead in hopes that the differences are apparent to you.

“Hmm, interesting, but what about the change not yet imagined stuff?”

Ah, yes. Some cool things start with our motivation when we pursue goals framed in terms of getting more of what we want in life! Because we constantly feel like we could do a little more, there’s always motivation on tap, allowing us to practice slowing down and being patient with ourselves.

And because the patterns keep increasing over time, momentum is building, and our motivation keeps growing. From my perspective, the coolest part is witnessing my clients’ transformation as they gain a sense of increasing self-knowledge, wisdom, and empowerment. As a result, they experience bold, brave changes that ripple through their families, social networks, workplaces, and beyond.

My clients regularly surprise themselves with changes they couldn’t have put into words at the beginning of our work together (because those changes were beyond the horizon when we started. Get it?!). They probably lost the weight somewhere along the way if that was important. But not everything hinges on that weight loss outcome. And it certainly was not our primary focus.

In the end, my clients are far more resilient, agile, and ready to adapt to whatever life throws at them than when we began our work together. My clients don’t “need me” to maintain their progress. They actively choose to keep working with me for as long as it makes sense to have an expert guide on their journey.