Hello, I am Dr. Amy N. Gorniak, a Licensed Psychologist and Licensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor in Texas. I specialize in skillfully guiding tweens, teens, and adults through trauma, stress, burnout, loss, and anxiety, fostering a path towards a fulfilling and meaningful life.
You didn’t realize how trapped you could feel by just living your life. All that boundless promise and potential you were told you had to fulfill seems to have evaporated into thin air. You feel like you’re slowly being crushed under the burden of overwhelming responsibilities. It’s exhausting to live this way.
Looking at the state of the world – from social injustice to climate change – makes it hard to imagine how to start making things different, much less good. There are so many demands and you don’t know how to juggle it all. It feels like you're always letting someone down.
And the critic in your head never stops. You’re hurting, flinching inside at all the mistakes you see yourself making. Stories about everything that’s wrong with you play on repeat in your mind. It’s hard to make room for compassion or joy when all you can think about is failure.
Your life keeps getting smaller. It’s impossible to move forward when you’re terrified of taking even the slightest risk. You avoid unpredictable situations because you’re frightened of getting it wrong, of people seeing you aren’t really as with it as they all seem to assume. And with each new obstacle or difficulty you face, making a change feels more hopeless.
As much as you want to tell people how you’re feeling, you just can’t find the words to explain. You know these stories you tell yourself aren’t helping and will only keep holding you back.
I’ve been helping people like you navigate life’s challenges for over a decade. I know the feeling of being lost and alone. I’ve seen firsthand how our experiences become stories about ourselves, others, and the world. These stories shape what we believe is possible. Therapy helps us identify which beliefs and behaviors are workable, get us to how we want to live, and which we can compost to feed the life you want to live.
So, what does that look like?
Before you walk in the door, you’ll have filled out some forms about essential parts of your (or your teen’s) story. Some of it may not seem important but it all provides context for our work. Gaining context means we can focus on what brought you in and where you want to go: perhaps you know exactly where you want to go, or maybe some part of you is crying out that there has to be another way. Either way, we'll make that map together as we explore your life.
As we meet, we’ll learn about your hurts and hopes. Together, we’ll identify what you want to achieve and how you want to live. We’ll try on skills and perspectives that can expand your capacity to move through challenges, and we’ll grow the supports that root you into the community and help you flourish. We’ll know you’re ready for therapy to end when you know what a meaningful life is for you and have developed the self-awareness, skills, and relationships that help you live that while navigating life’s challenges.
I see therapy as two (or more, when we meet as a family) humans in a room navigating life and learning together. Every person I meet, every person I partner with in therapy or assessment brings their own wisdom and I am privileged to get to experience the unique gifts of so many different people.
During my career, I have been privileged to work with individuals from six weeks old through the end of their lifespan and their families, teachers, and other care providers in a variety of settings. I expanded my initial expertise beyond complex childhood trauma and family work and to the trauma of climate change, grief, anxiety and perfectionism, burnout, and the impact of difficult transitions – pain and chronic illness, difficult breakups, and becoming an adult.
Most importantly, my understanding of therapy grew to include the body and nervous system, models of co-regulation with humans and the other-than-human world, post-traumatic growth, positive psychology, collective liberation, intergenerational healing, and personal and communal resilience building. This includes using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a framework with EMDR, mindfulness, somatic practices, parts work (like IFS), and other experiential modalities.
I explicitly affirm everyone’s gender and sexuality and welcome the full range of human relationship expressions, from romantic friendship to monogamy to polyamory. I make space to explore the meaning of racial and ethnic identity, disability, chronic illness, immigration stories, intergenerational and cultural traumas, and the spiritual in your life, whatever that may mean for you and your family and community.
