Deborah (Deb) Cehak (she/her)

I help people who are leading lives they do not prefer. Often, this looks like a growing sense of disconnection from a marriage or partnership. Other times, there is a growing sense that the way you’re spending your time and the people you’re spending it with no longer feels aligned.

Working at a pace that you are comfortable with, we start by going from vague to specific, moving towards a more precise and workable understanding of the core problem. Then we look at when the problem began, the circumstances in which it arises, and what affects it. This involves an internal exploration, as well as an examination of the environments, cultures, and context, including but not limited to race, gender, sexuality, socio-economic status, and ability.

I’ve never been much of a ‘talk about the weather’ kind of person, so meaningful connection and conversation lights me up. The first task of therapy is always for my clients to feel deeply understood, especially when they have been feeling isolated or less than. 

Clients have shared that talking to me feels natural: I’ve been told I am relatable, honest, direct, and non-judgmental. Clients can expect a collaborative process working with me. I see myself as having therapy skills and my client as having their personal life skills. I have never spent a day in any of my clients’ shoes, so I do not believe I can give advice or have any idea what they ‘should’ do. I see it as my job to help clients figure out what decisions to make based on their morals and ethics. I take their stories with me into my life, and they influence how I show up in the world.

I have been interested in therapy my entire life. My dad was a therapist, and I remember every day when he came home from work; even as a young child, I would ask him what kinds of clients he had and how he helped them. When I was 16-years old my dad discovered the narrative therapy community. At first I heard about it through him, but when I joined the narrative community, they became family. Narrative therapists share a similar worldview and we connect deeply through that.

My experiences of ageism as a teenager and sexism as a young woman led me to be passionate about social justice, which grew when I had a child with disabilities, and grew even more when I had a son and realized the effects of our society on boys as well as girls. Spending a year in Los Angeles to train intensively with narrative therapists was my utopia, and my research in adolescence through my master’s and doctoral degrees also significantly influences how I practice. Most recently, after years of working with couples, some of whom I help navigate separation, I became a divorce coach in order to gain more knowledge and specific training and edification to support couples in that process.