Meet courtney bledsoe, lcsw / Therapist in oak park il

I believe you deserve days filled with joy and ease.

Courtney Bledsoe, LCSW Oak Park Therapist

Life has become difficult and overwhelming, you are already tired when you wake up.

You’re in the right place.

Our time together is a commitment we make to prioritize you.

Maybe you are irritable, quick to anger, and worried all the time. Or maybe grief makes day to day life hard as you are overcome with feelings at the slightest thing. Possibly you feel like you need to walk on eggshells around your child to try and avoid another meltdown. Experiencing any of these things is confusing and overwhelming and you are just trying to keep up.

You want to feel steady, deeply connected and joyful. 

I will listen without judgment as we explore your history and current day to day life.

We will work to develop greater insight about yourself and how your history is influencing your present. You will always feel empowered to focus our sessions on what you need most. I will guide and provide feedback, pointing our work towards patterns, solutions and compassion. 

Developing insight on its own will not create the transformation you are wanting. So, we will pair your new insight with new skills, new habits, and new capacities. Therapy can be serious and we will talk about difficult things. But we may also laugh, get creative and feel the joy in new discoveries. 

My style

I believe we all need someone in our corner.

Working with me means that I am committed to you. I am in your corner. I will listen without judgment. I will cheer you on. I will be honest about the difficult things. I will prioritize you. 

Clients often tell me that they have done therapy before, but they haven’t seen a change in their daily lives.

I craft a personalized therapy approach that emphasizes both skill building and insight so you see changes outside of the therapy room. 

I “get it” and I have the training to guide you from where you are to where you want to be. 

I believe that therapy should bring about lasting change that goes with you outside of therapy.

Being a strong advocate and compassionate therapist, means that I combine my education with my lived experiences.

I am a parent, daughter, friend and lived a life that includes loss, trauma, anxiety, anger, confusion and struggle. Through my own therapy and self discovery, I have some hard won wisdom and also have learned to be a soft landing spot for others who also are struggling. 

My training at the University of Chicago and Ann & Robert H Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago provided a rigorous grounding in evidence based best practices. I have pursued ongoing training in the treatment of anxiety, parenting and grief.

I believe that therapy should offer you support as well as bring about change that you can see in your day to day life.

Oftentimes people experience insight in sessions but it never ripples out into their world. Therapy with me means that we take that insight and discover how to put it into action.

Bridging your insight into your everyday life brings change that lasts.

 Clients say that they feel like I really understand what they are going through.

They often describe my approach as compassionate, honest and creative.

I feel proud that I am offering a fresh perspective and bringing new ideas to clients who have been struggling or tried other therapies in the past. Clients have said that they appreciate my focus on results and sustainable change. 

My guiding principles

Nuance

I believe that we should be able to voice our full experience. Not all of parenting is joyful, sometimes it is boring or frustrating. Or maybe you still dream about your life pre-kids. Same for grief and anxiety. Being human is complicated. I want to remove the shame that can come from naming parts of our experience that we think are “unacceptable”

Acceptance

I believe that everyone wants to be seen and heard. Feeling accepted in therapy is often a very healing experience. I promise to provide an accepting and open space for all of you. Through feeling this acceptance from me, you can start to accept all of the parts of yourself.

Connection

I believe that relationships change us. I believe that we need other people. There are seasons of life where feeling part of a community and connected to others is hard. Sometimes anxiety or grief can feel like barriers to being connected. Therapy can be a place to explore relationship patterns, practice relationship skills and build capacities to find strong connections outside of therapy.

Growth

I believe that we can all grow and learn. I believe that everyone wants to do well and that part of my job is to help figure out what feels hard and stuck to make that easier. It is never too late to feel better, to learn a new skill or to build new relationships.

Authenticity

I believe that everyone comes into this world whole and worthy. In sessions I want you to be yourself and bring all of who you are. I will too. If I can offer a personal example or experience that will help, I will. Therapy with me isn’t one sided, sitting with a therapist just nodding. We are building a relationship. I am all in alongside you.

Compassion

Father Gregory Boyle said “We need radical compassion that stands in awe of what people carry, instead of in judgment of how they carry it”. This is what I strive to offer in therapy. The difficulty, symptoms, and suffering you are experiencing make sense. I have deep respect for the ways in which you have gotten through. I also can see healing and hope for you as well.

Training & Education

  • University of Kansas - Psychology and Human Development

  • University of Chicago - Master’s in Social Work

  • Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW)

  • Ann & Robert H Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago

  • Claire Bidwell Smith’s Grief and Loss Certification

  • Extensive training in CBT, ERP, DBT, play therapy and mindfulness

  • University of Chicago Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Fellowship 2023-2024

  • Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE) training

Therapy Methods

  • CBT is a focused, goal oriented, skills based form of treatment. The focus of CBT is identifying and changing unhelpful behaviors and patterns of thinking. CBT is based on the idea that our thoughts and behaviors influence how we feel, so if we change our thoughts and behaviors we will change how we feel. CBT emphasizes new skill development. Learn more.

  • DBT focuses on how to tolerate uncomfortable emotions, that resisting strong emotions often increases suffering, and honors an individual’s strengths while seeking to improve their coping strategies. There are four main areas of focus in DBT: mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance. Learn more.

  • ERP is an evidence based therapy for the treatment of OCD and other anxiety disorders. This therapy helps people confront their fears in a safe and gradual way. This allows practice tolerating uncomfortable reactions, using coping skills and gaining confidence in their ability to overcome their anxiety. This treatment confronts the idea that if something makes us anxious it should be avoided. Often an ERP session will include: building a fear ladder, planning for an exposure, engaging in the exposure, and response prevention (decreasing/limiting compulsion or safety behaviors). Learn more.

  • This is a focused form of therapy that helps individuals to reduce self-judgment and live their values. I often use ACT in combination with other treatment approaches. A typical ACT focused session may include: noticing thoughts, defusion to disengage from thoughts, acceptance exercises, clarifying values and making goals consistent with values identified.

  • Parent Training is an important part of treating children. Having parents involved in the treatment process is necessary and helps to increase the effectiveness of the treatment. In parent training, parents will learn effective strategies for supporting their child during treatment so their child can practice new skills. Home is where children spend most of their time, so parents can dramatically help their child to integrate new skills and make new changes. Parents will learn to set boundaries, support their child in difficult situations, help their child to use coping skills, handle outbursts/behavior, and encourage the generalization of new skills.

  • Play therapy is focused on play! Play is how children communicate, explore feelings, and learn. In therapy, play is utilized to both engage the child and to explore difficult feelings. Play therapy offers a child an accessible way to learn new ways of coping, expressing and handling feelings, and connecting with others. Coming to therapy and talking about problems and feelings doesn’t make sense to kids - but they are always willing to play. Play therapy follows the child’s lead and makes it easier for children to engage in therapy.

  • SPACE (supportive parenting for anxiety childhood emotions) is an evidence based approach to treating anxiety in children and adolescents. It is a unique approach because parents come to sessions. Although the parents are participating in sessions and making changes to their parenting approach, the treatment is for the child.