Hi there! I'm Maddy, the founder of Ebb & Flow Psychotherapy, and as you can probably tell from my photo, I'm very happy to welcome you here!​

 

​Where it all began...

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     Before embarking on my journey towards crafting the passion project that is now Ebb & Flow, I started my career as a Qualifying psychotherapist working in inpatient and outpatient community mental health at my local hospital; those beige walls saw some of the most challenging, eye-opening and inspired moments of my life. My biggest take-away from the hundreds of hours I spent in discussion with people - predominantly women - while they navigated some of their most helpless moments?

Hard times can fall on anyone at anytime.

No one is exempt from the reality of existing as a human on Earth.
This sh*t can be hard, we all need a little help sometimes, and the power of a little help can be life-changing. ​

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​So, how did we get here?​​

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     Helping others is my passion. As cliché as that may be for a therapist to say, I truly believe that healing happens in the presence of a compassionate witness, and nothing sets my soul alight like being that witness for another person. I think this is in part because I've been on both sides of the Helping Relationship; I am as much the drowning woman stretching my hand through the water for help, as I am the compassionate therapist reaching back to pull one from the waves. It took me a while to realize that I can be both; that being human is nuanced, brutal and beautiful at the same time.

     After spending a good chunk of my young adult life feeling as though I would always be stuck under the waves, I found my helping hand in the form of a softly-spoken, heavily tattooed Mental Health Nurse, who witnessed me; she dug through the complexities and the conditioning and the camouflage and guided me through the process of receiving a diagnosis for Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD). I won't say this diagnosis changed my life, but the compassion that nurse offered me during my most helpless moments certainly did. Slowly, I began to unravel the identity I had formed for myself while under the waves.

I wasn't broken. I wasn't 'crazy', 'too much', 'too emotional', 'hysterical', or 'a spazz'. Maybe this sounds all too familiar for you as well. 

     As I began to de-stigmatize the process of being a woman for myself, it became clear just how many other women around me were slipping under the waves, too. How many others, like me, were squishing themselves to fit into a mold that they couldn't possibly be expected to thrive in. After many, many hours of research, driven by passion and occasionally by feminine rage, I saw just how underrepresented the woman's hormonal cycle was in mental health research. How deeply buried this crucial part of womanhood was; how detached from our most instinctual selves we have been forced to become to 'fit' in this world. 

     And there it was. The 'click' I had been waiting for as a new therapist. I found my purpose, the specific demographic that I could offer the most benefit to, while simultaneously healing the (rightfully) pissed-off woman inside of me, who had been screaming for attention and alignment for most of my life. If you've made it this far into my bio, I'm willing to bet she is within you, too. And if you're also tired of trying to jam yourself into the mold, of being over-looked and over-labeled and dismissed for your womanhood, you're in the right place. All that's left to do is reach your hand out, so that I may help pull you from the waves. 

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