On her way back from lunch with a group of men at work, my client continued to feel excited. She had just landed a job at a tech start-up and was invited spontaneously. She and four male colleagues all geeked out about their favorite comic books and video games. As the conversation continued, the four men commented on an attractive woman passing by on the street; to my client it was objectifying but not creepy. Instantly her excitement faded; in its place came fear and shame. 

How would you feel? How would you respond? 

I’m currently seeking women working in tech-related fields in Austin to join a supportive, psycho-educational group of like-minded peers.

I’m interested in helping women in Austin working in tech related fields and start-ups. In my clinical experience, these women – and maybe I’m talking to you right now – are often high-functioning, high-achieving employees who internalize toxic messages around gender norms. Perhaps they are the only women in the room where bro culture runs rampant.

That culture can be professionally exciting, innovative, wildly creative and enormously biased and sexist. More specifically, I’m interested in the paradox between this level of innovation and creativity on one hand and on the other the same old, tired, enraging, and unexamined misogynistic culture that seems to inhabit these spaces. Given their ambitious inner drives, these women often succeed while inside they beat themselves up. And given the constraints of the culture and the deep desire to fit it, they don’t talk about it. And not talking about it keeps them stuck and hating themselves – which inevitably inhibits their own innovative, ambitious drives.

Were you drawn to this work culture too? Perhaps at first you were excited by your work — and yet now you come home at the end of every day and feel awful. And you’re not sure why.

A therapy group with other women offers the ideal environment in which to help women like you not only get support from people who know what it’s like but also to discern the difference between your own feelings and ideas and the ones your culture taught you. And it affords you the radical opportunity to befriend yourself and create meaningful, lasting relationships with other women.

If you are interested please call or email.  512.669.0395.