ABOUT ABBY WILHELM, MA, LMFT-A
I am so grateful for the opportunity I have in my profession to help relieve suffering in families and create more loving homes for children to grow up in.
“True compassion means not only feeling another’s pain but also being moved to help relieve it.” — Daniel Goleman
A therapist who sees your relationship for what it is.
I graduated with my Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Converse University where I was trained in relational models of therapy. As a therapist and a person, I hold the following core beliefs about your struggling relationship:
Your behavior and emotions make sense in the context of your experiences.
Neither one of your basic human needs for safety and connection are being met.
The withdrawing or fighting is symptom of a deeper problem—disconnection.
Underneath the anger is real pain.
Neither of you are solely to blame. You are reacting to each other for reasons you likely aren’t aware of.
Human first, therapist second.
Before I became a therapist, I was a person, daughter, wife, mom, student, and friend. My humanity allows me to connect with my clients no matter how similar or different we are. Here is a little about me...
I absolutely love being a mom. I love children and I treasure family time. I deeply value the impact a loving partnership has not only on the individuals involved but on the entire family, especially children. I enjoy doing couples therapy, and there is an extra sense of fulfillment and joy that comes from seeing progress in couples with kids at home. I wish all children grew up in an environment in which they felt safe and happy and could learn how to love and be loved by watching their parents. And I wish all parents had the opportunity to love and enjoy their children while experiencing deep love and closeness with their spouse to propel them through the hardest parts of parenthood.
My relationship with God is extremely important to me. As I’ve found healing through a personal connection to God and learned about His communal nature, I’ve come to believe that connection is healing in and of itself—connection to God, others, ourselves, and nature. Fascinatingly, EFT has the studies to back that up which is so exciting to me—even depression and heart disease have been improved and cured by a deep connection with our spouse! My life’s mission is to live more connectedly and foster more connection in other people.
I’m fascinated by many scientific and psychological processes in this beautiful world—birth, health and nutrition, relationships, parenting, gardening, and preserving food. I also love to create things. I enjoy sewing and trying all kinds of DIY projects. I love cooking and trying new recipes, and I play a couple musical instruments and enjoy songwriting. I also love being in nature—catching bugs, lizards, and snakes with my daughter, hiking, camping, picnics, etc.
In group settings, I much prefer listening, but I’m also not exactly quiet. I could talk your ear off in a one-on-one conversation and I’ve been known to embarrass my husband in public, squealing, singing, laughing, and being so silly with my daughter. I smile and laugh easily and enjoy the little things in life. I am a total homebody and will never be the life of the party. At a social event I can be found talking about real, deep things with one or two people. I thrive off of deep, connected relationships and often catch myself asking personal questions that aren’t exactly socially acceptable outside of the therapy room.
So I’m a real person... With interests and values that may be very different from yours, but a person nonetheless. Someone who has lived in this world and can sit with you, hear your struggles, and then walk with you toward deeper connection and love.