Caroline Stevens

Much of what we discover in therapy took shape early, often in your family of origin, as a way to stay safe or accepted. The automatic thoughts, core beliefs, emotional reactions, and coping behaviors that repeat now in your adulthood made sense back then in your childhood. Those patterns in how you see yourself, other people, the world, and your future can be the hardest to shift because they go back so far, and untangling them is where the deepest progress happens.

There’s a point where the old version of you no longer fits and the new one hasn’t settled in yet, and that gap is where most people want to quit. I call it the “stretch period,” and what you build there is what lasts. After it, the hard days still come, yet you recover from them faster, with more insight, and with less of the old story attached.

Most of what we talk about in session circles back to one question. “You can’t change what shaped you, so what will you make of it?” Part of the answer is getting clear on your own values and boundaries, apart from the ones your family or your culture handed you.

My approach is relational, with person-centered and existential roots. We spend time on what gives your life meaning and on the choices in front of you, including the ones you’ve been putting off. I also incorporate somatic work, which brings the body into the picture. We notice the physical reactions that surface while we talk, and when your nervous system is running the show. I bring in tools from CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) to give you concrete skills for the time between sessions.

Working on my own mental health in my thirties brought me back to what I’d wanted at twenty-one. For the past five years I’ve worked in behavioral health, in roles from admissions to clinical leadership, and I’ve helped design treatment programs that are running strong in multiple behavioral health companies in the greater Denver area. All of my past experiences led to Grava Health, the practice that Dane and I built on what we’d lived and what we’d learned.