My name is Andrea Hohf (she/hers), and I am a child development specialist, a social worker, a therapist, and an educator. I am a childhood trauma survivor, lived through abuse, neglect, and traumatic grief. I am a woman, a mother, a wife. I am a citizen – I pay taxes, have a mortgage and a car payment, and a heap and a half of student loan debt. I am trying to say that I’m just like you. I’ve seen or heard it all, been through it all, and have survived it all, and my life’s work is devoted to helping you all.

My additional and specialized training has focused on both trauma and human development. Trauma has complex impacts on a person’s developmental trajectory, and it is helpful to me to understand the developmental process in order to help you understand why you are the way you are, and why you do the things you do, given when things happen to you throughout life. Development is complex even without the presence of identified trauma. Development doesn’t stop in or after childhood, we continue to change and grow until we pass on from this earth, and these changes can be very overwhelming and difficult, particularly as you interact in your various areas, like school, church, work, and in relationships – friendships, partnerships, parenting, and with yourself. We can’t escape ourselves, our histories, or what we are going through today, but we can process, cope, and control what is within our scope so that we can define our futures as we go, and our past or present doesn’t do the defining for us.

As a mother, I have seen my own children and children of friends, family, and in peer groups, struggle with both traditional (or “typical”) and non-traditional (or “atypical) growth and development. There is a reason they say parenting is the hardest job – because it is!! Even with the least complex children. Kids have tremendous developmental expectations spread over several years of life – they keep changing! Parents often struggle to understand their children, their children’s behaviors, and what is the best way to parent children. I can help with enhancing parenting skills and navigating this complex web of intersecting domains so you can feel like you are effective, validated, and enjoying your child(ren).

Working with adults as individuals and couples, it is evident how confused and overwhelmed we get by our competing demands – work, school, parenting, relationships, politics, family dynamics, hopes, dreams, and aspirations. How can one person be in so many places, answering so many demands, at once? What even is “self-care”? My work with adults supports this complex web of expectations and serves to normalize, help prioritize, and offer a judgment free space to “dump” and then clean up the baggage that you bring with you through life. Therapy IS self-care and supports deep and personal introspection and reflection and has no personal stake in how you come to decide what’s best for you and your priority list. Therapy helps the adult understand who they are, why they are, what they want to do with that realization, and how to make change happen, an understanding of self, made for the client by the client.

All of these complexities are normal insofar as there is no such thing as normal. I started this practice to help people understand themselves, and for some people to understand their children. I want to share what I know through psychoeducation and coaching and support your process in making change, or coping with change, or giving space for your grief, or how to manage expectations while having mental health barriers like anxiety, depression, trauma, or interpersonal barriers like fighting, avoidance, poor communication, divorce, social anxiety, adjustment issues, etc. I am building a practice where you can teach me about you – dreams, struggles, strengths, goals, failures – and what you want for yourself, and we can work together to get you there. I have the knowledge of development and people, you have the knowledge of you.

Hope is never lost. All are welcome here.