Cadyn Cathers, M.A.
Psychological Intern # Supervised by Kenneth Scott, Psy.D. PSY18087What holds you back from living the life you want? Are you seeking real authentic connections and healthier relationships? Do you want to gain greater emotional and sexual intimacy with your partner(s)? Do you feel isolated, alone, or lonely? Do you feel like you are repeating the same relational patterns over and over again?
From birth, our experiences with others and the world shape our emotions and minds. We learn about ourselves through relationships. Sometimes what we learned in the past causes problems for us in the present day. These become part of our unconscious mind. Trauma, neglect and micro-aggressions can keep us from having the intimacy, career or life that we want. Without conscious awareness, these unfortunate lessons can cause us to sabotage ourselves and/or our relationships with others. We can unlearn these to live more fully.
I help individuals and couples understand their experiences and patterns, both past and present. We can collaborate to recognize your strengths and explore problem patterns to move towards a more authentic, fulfilled, and meaningful life. Together, we engage bravely (and playfully) with unexamined thoughts, feelings and experiences!
I focus on in-depth, contemporary, relational psychodynamic therapy that brings sociocultural contexts into the room. In collaboration with my clients, I hope to co-create a therapeutic relationship that encourages my clients to process and fully experience emotions, move through depression and anxiety, and re-frame negative thoughts and patterns with a deeper understanding of their origins.
I am currently accepting new clients in a private practice setting in the Glendale and Santa Monica, CA.
My areas of interest are varied, but all of them have a theme of finding greater authenticity in a world that can be harsh to those who are different. I do this by helping you deconstruct negative messages that have become internalized and are being acted out in ways that hinder genuine self-expression.
Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, Genderqueer, Questioning and Other Non-Cisgender Identities
Gender is a central component to who we are, but it is complicated and nuanced. It is different than sex. Sex is a construct based on biology (anatomy, chromosomes, genetics, hormones, and hormone receptors, etc.). Gender has 3 interrelated components: core gender, gender identity, and gender expression. Core gender is an innate, essentialist, or core part of who we are; it cannot be labeled as language cannot begin to describe something so complicated. Gender identity is the label that we use to describe our core gender in ways that are more concrete and understandable to others. Gender expression includes all the socially constructed ways that gender is expressed from clothing to hair to vocal expressions.
From before we are born, we are inundated with messages about how our sex assigned at birth should determine our gender identity, gender expression, and sexuality. Society likes to think of gender as binary: all people assigned male at birth should identify as men and should be masculine and all people assigned female at birth should identify as women and should be feminine. But people are more complex than that! Some people identify with the “ends” of gender spectrum (i.e. man or woman) and others identify as a combination of man and woman, or neither. Some people may identify more fluidly and some are more constant. The diversity of gender is immense.
Some people who identify as a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth transition. What transition looks like is different for everyone. Transition can be social, legal, or medical. Social transition may include using a new name, requesting different pronouns, a new haircut, different clothes or using a different bathroom. Medical transition may include hormones and/or surgery(ies). Gender confirming surgeries may include facial, voice, chest/breast, body contouring, or genital. There are many different procedures and even different techniques for each them! Transition is a process by which transgender and gender non-conforming people find the best way to express their authentic selves. There is no one right way to transition.
Letters are often required for surgery by the surgeon and/or the insurance company. I write letters for gender confirming surgeries from an informed consent model rather than a gatekeeping one. Transgender and gender non-conforming people have a right to make decisions about their bodies. Psychotherapy can be helpful in preparation for surgery. Surgery (any surgery) can be difficult as it includes anesthesia, the operation, and recovery. Recovery can sometimes be difficult due to post –operative weakness, unmet expectations, pain and/or complications. My goal is to help you psychologically through the process by helping you prepare for gender confirming surgery and supporting you in recovery.