About Me and My Work
At the Heart and Soul of My Work is a Question:
What happens when your inner world starts to make sense to you?
Many people come to therapy feeling divided between what they think, what they feel, how they act, or even who they believe themselves to be. They may understand themselves intellectually, yet still feel unsafe, conflicted, or uncertain in relationships and daily life because something essential still feels missing.
My work focuses on helping these different parts of your experience begin working together rather than competing with one another. As your thoughts, emotions, values, and lived experience become more integrated, many people discover a greater sense of physical and emotional steadiness—the kind of inner peace that allows us not just to cope, but to flourish.
I’m especially interested in building bridges: within each person and between people. I believe we are far more similar than we are different, and that healing begins when we can hold complexity with curiosity rather than judgment.
We are all wonderfully complicated. We deserve a space where every part of us is welcome, where patterns can be explored without shame, and where new possibilities can emerge. As we develop greater empathy for our own internal experience, it often becomes easier to extend that same understanding to others. From that place, taking the next step—whatever it may be—often feels a little less daunting.
My Approach is Collaborative and Grounded.
Therapy works best when both of us are fully invested in the process. I’m not here to tell you who to be or what “better” should look like. Instead, we’ll slow things down together and explore what meaningful change looks like for you.
Part of that process involves paying attention to what is happening in real time—how your thoughts, emotions, body, and nervous system influence your choices, relationships, and sense of safety in the world. At the same time, we’ll remain curious about the deeper meanings you’ve come to give your experiences and how those meanings continue to shape your life today.
I’m practical in the sense that I care about what actually helps. While every person’s journey is unique, our work often involves recognizing patterns that create internal conflict, noticing how those patterns influence your relationships and daily life, and experimenting with new ways of responding that feel more authentic, flexible, and sustainable.
To me, this is what individual therapy truly means. Rather than asking you to fit a particular model, we shape the work around you.
Change rarely comes from forcing yourself to become someone different. More often, it comes from understanding what is already happening within you and learning to relate to yourself in a new way. As Carl Rogers wrote, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
“Somatic Therapy” and Why The Body Matters
A central part of my work involves developing somatic awareness—the ability to notice and understand the signals your body is already sending. Your breath, muscle tension, posture, heartbeat, and emotional shifts all carry information that can help you better understand yourself and respond to life’s challenges with greater intention.
Many people have never been taught this skill, yet it plays an important role in emotional regulation, decision-making, and meaningful relationships.
The body often knows something before the mind can put it into words. A tight chest, a lump in your throat, a racing heart, or a sense that something simply doesn’t feel right are all part of how your nervous system communicates. Rather than learning about these experiences on a chart or a computer screen, therapy gives you the opportunity to notice them directly, in your own body, and discover what they may be trying to tell you.
Over time, learning to listen in this way often leads to greater clarity, steadiness, and self-trust. You begin responding not only from what you think, but from a deeper awareness of your own lived experience.
My Approach is Holistic and Integrative.
I work holistically and take an integrative approach, which means I don’t treat symptoms in isolation or rely on a single lens to understand what’s happening. What lens I will draw on will depend on your uniqueness as a person, that is what “person centered” basically means. People are shaped by their nervous systems and nervous systems are shaped by other nervous systems. Relationships, histories, values, and the environments you have moved through matters a great deal if we are going to set a course different than the on your system is currently on. Therapy works best when all of us is allowed into the room. Whatever you are sharing may produce fruit for thought down the road.
That being said, yes it is helpful in our work together to explore patterns that formed early in your family that raised you and notice how your body responds in real time as we sit together and notice each others presence. This is a real time experience no one can get sitting at a computer chatting with AI, this thing we call “therapy,” it is more than that as you can see. Exploring in this way thoughts that keep looping by slow things down enough to hear what’s underneath the noise more deeply. I also draw from psychodynamic (check out my blog for more of my thoughts on these terms) and attachment-based therapy, somatic and nervous-system-informed approaches, cognitive and behavioral tools, and mindfulness practices, using what helps you make sense of your experience as we discuss your unique life and what is in your awareness as we explore your life.
Integration happens when these pieces begin to talk to one another to put it more simply. Insight connects with felt experience in real time because we are with someone who can show us the way. While these tools are vital for life, they are not always provide or available to us naturally. My work is about instilling or restoring these capacities for others because we all desire a chance to live our life’s to the fullest. Awareness turns into choice and choices open up the world to possibility. Over time, this kind of processing supports steadier regulation, more flexibility in relationships, and a deeper sense of internal coherence which allows us to take control of our life situations with more courage and capacity for responsibility.
The aim isn’t to rush change or resolve everything, but to help you relate to yourself and your life with more clarity, capacity, and care sustainably.
Positive Change Occurs Steadily.
With time, patience, and a willingness to stay curious, many people begin to feel safer within themselves. Relationships often become less reactive and more intentional. Decisions feel clearer. There is more room for nuance, self-compassion, and genuine choice.
Many people find themselves reconnecting with curiosity, dreaming again, experimenting, and creating lives that feel more aligned with their values and more fully their own.
This work isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about developing the capacity to stay present with yourself, especially when life becomes difficult, and moving forward with greater clarity, courage, and care.
From that place, meaningful and lasting change becomes possible.
If this way of thinking resonates with you, I’d be honored to meet you. Schedule a free consultation, and let’s begin exploring what your next chapter could look like.
Amy Ratkovich, MA, LMFT
We’ll Collaborate on What Matters Most.
I’m a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in California and Wisconsin, and the founder of Near & Dear Therapy. The name comes from my grandmother’s words to those she loved: “You know you’re near and dear to my heart.”
That phrase captures the essence of how I view therapy – a close and meaningful collaboration between two individuals working toward clarity, healing, and growth.
Here is Something Personal.
Outside of the sessions, you’ll usually find me working to create fun things, blogs, writing creatively or lost in a good book, film, or project in the yard.
At times I may traveling and I travel often between California and Wisconsin, the two states I am licensed in.
Both places deeply inform my sense of home and balance as both places I call “home.”
When your ready, if my approach resonates with you…
I’d love to meet you and help you start your next chapter of thoughtful change.