Near and Dear Therapy

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Walnut Creek, CA
Near and Dear Therapy

Holistic and Compassionate Care and Insights I focus on creating a space where you feel seen, supported, and grounded — a space where real growth can unfold.

👋 Welcome — I'm Amy Ratkovich, LMFT
I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist serving clients in both California and Wisconsin. With over nine years of experience, I support individuals navigating ADHD, anxiety, depression, trauma, and relationship challenges.

🌀 My Approach
Healing isn’t one-size-fits-all. My work is rooted in deep, intuitive listening and a blend of person-centered, psychodynamic, and eclectic therapies. Together, we explore your patterns, your needs, and your strengths — not from a place of fixing, but from a place of rediscovering what’s already whole within you.

🌿 What You Can Expect
Sessions are collaborative, compassionate, and paced to meet you where you are. You’ll build insight, learn practical coping strategies, and deepen your connection to yourself. Whether you’re working through something specific or seeking long-term personal growth, I’m here to walk with you.

10/22/2026

Dear Friends and Community,

Sober October Week 4: Looking Back Without Beating Yourself Up 🍂

As we get closer to the end of Sober October, this is a good time to look back—not to grade yourself, but to notice what you’ve learned.

Maybe you followed your intentions perfectly. Maybe you didn’t. Either way, there is information there.

What went well? What was harder than you expected? When did you most want to reach for something? What helped? And what did you learn about yourself along the way?

Change rarely happens in a perfectly straight line. A difficult day, an old habit, or a choice you wish you had made differently doesn’t erase the awareness you’ve gained.

You can hold yourself accountable without being cruel to yourself.

So this week, look back with honesty and kindness.

Notice the progress. Get curious about the difficult moments. And remember: change is a process, not a perfect performance.

Next Thursday, we’ll finish Sober October by asking: What will you take with you?

Warmly,

Amy Ratkovich LMFT 124308

www.neardeartherapy.com

10/15/2026

Dear Friends and Community,

Sober October Weekly Check-In: What Happens When You Stop Doing It Alone?

I have seen many of my clients benefit from going meetings. The community they find is priceless.
This week, reflect...
"Do I have enough human connection and support?"
If not, perhaps it is time to give me a call.

Amy Ratkovich, LMFT 124308
Near & Dear Therapy | Psychotherapy for Women
Telehealth in California & Wisconsin
510-269-4808
www.neardeartherapy.com

10/08/2026

Dear Friends and Community,

Sober October Weekly Check-In: What Are You Reaching For?

Dear Friends and Community,

Sober October Weekly Check-In: What Are You Reaching For?

Last week, I invited you to pause on your vices. Now let's look at what that vice does for you. I know, it's no good for you, but something about it is supportive...what is that?
Can we find another way to meet that need?

Amy Ratkovich, LMFT 124308
Near & Dear Therapy | Psychotherapy for Women
Telehealth in California & Wisconsin
510-269-4808
www.neardeartherapy.com

10/05/2026

Dear Friends and Community,

October is ADHD Awareness Month 🍂

ADHD is often talked about in terms of attention, organization, productivity, and getting things done.

But living with ADHD traits can involve much more than whether you remembered the appointment or finished everything on your to-do list.

It can be the experience of having a mind that moves quickly between ideas. Becoming completely absorbed in something that interests you while struggling to begin something that doesn’t. Feeling overwhelmed by seemingly ordinary demands. Losing track of time. Becoming frustrated when you know what you want to do but can’t seem to make yourself do it.

And sometimes it means spending years trying to force yourself to function in ways that work beautifully for other people—but don’t necessarily work for you.

That can create its own emotional burden.

Why can’t I just be more consistent?
Why is this easy for everyone else?
Why do I keep doing this?
Why can I accomplish incredibly difficult things and then struggle with something that should be simple?

Part of my work with ADHD is moving away from the idea that the goal is simply to become better at forcing yourself to perform.

Instead, we can become curious about your particular mind.

What captures your attention?

What overwhelms it?

What happens in your body when there are too many demands competing for your attention?

What helps you settle enough to think clearly?

This ADHD Awareness Month, I’ll be talking about ADHD from that broader perspective—not simply as a problem of productivity, but as an opportunity to better understand your patterns, your nervous system, your relationships, and the unique ways you move through the world.

Because the goal isn't perfection.

It's greater awareness, greater agency, and finding ways of living that actually work for you.

Amy Ratkovich, LMFT 124308
Near & Dear Therapy | Psychotherapy for Women
Telehealth in California & Wisconsin
510-269-4808
www.neardeartherapy.com

10/01/2026

Dear Friends and Community,

Who wants to try Sober October?

If you’ve been following along for a while, you might remember that last year I invited you to join me for Sober October.

Every day throughout the month, we explored a different idea related to sobriety, harm reduction, self-awareness, and our relationship with the things we sometimes use to change how we feel.

This year, I want to do it again—but a little differently.

Instead of posting every day, we’re going to slow it down and check in once a week, giving ourselves a little more time to actually think about what we notice.

And Sober October doesn’t have to mean deciding that you’ll never drink again. It doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing.

Think of it as an experiment.

What happens when you spend a month paying closer attention to your relationship with alcohol or other substances?

Maybe you begin noticing when you reach for something to relax after a difficult day. To quiet your mind. To feel more comfortable socially. To reward yourself. To fall asleep. To stop thinking for a while. Or simply because it has become part of your routine.

The interesting question may not just be:

“Can I go without it?”

It might be:

“What do I notice when I do?”

What happens to your sleep? Your mood? Your energy? Your anxiety? What feelings become easier to notice? What situations make you want to reach for something? And what else helps you settle when you don’t?

From a harm-reduction perspective, awareness matters. This isn’t about shame, moralizing, or perfection. It’s about becoming more conscious of the choices we make and what those choices may be doing for us.

So if you joined me last year, welcome back.

And if you didn’t, this is a great year to start.

Who wants to try Sober October with me?

Warmly,

Amy Ratkovich, LMFT 124308
Near & Dear Therapy | Psychotherapy for Women
Telehealth in California & Wisconsin
510-269-4808
www.neardeartherapy.com

09/30/2026

Dear Friends and Community,

Your Body May Notice Before Your Mind Does.

Sometimes the first sign that something needs our attention isn’t a thought.

It’s a sensation.

Your shoulders are tense again. Your jaw is clenched. You’re exhausted even though you slept. Or maybe you can’t sleep because your mind and body refuse to settle down.

You find yourself more irritable than usual. Little things feel strangely overwhelming. You feel restless and keyed-up, as though something is about to happen—or you experience the opposite: flat, disconnected, shut down, and unable to find the energy to care about things that normally matter to you.

And sometimes your mind responds by saying, I’m fine. Nothing is wrong.

But your body may be telling a different story.

We often think of emotions as things that happen primarily in our minds, but our experiences are also felt and carried physically. Stress, anxiety, grief, relationship difficulties, uncertainty, and the pressure of simply keeping everything going can show up in the body before we have fully understood what we’re feeling.

Part of therapy can be learning to become curious about those signals rather than immediately trying to suppress them, push through them, or judge ourselves for having them.

What am I noticing?

When does this feeling appear?

What seems to make it stronger—or quieter?

What might my body be responding to that I haven’t put into words yet?

Paying attention to your body doesn’t mean assuming every physical sensation is psychological. Sometimes physical symptoms need medical attention. But it does mean recognizing that your body can be an important source of information about how you are experiencing your life.

Sometimes understanding ourselves begins by noticing what we feel before we know what we think.

Amy Ratkovich, LMFT 124308
Near & Dear Therapy | Psychotherapy for Women
Telehealth in California & Wisconsin
510-269-4808
www.neardeartherapy.com

09/28/2026

Dear Friends and Community,
expand on it a bit

In my 15 years of practice, I have come to understand ADHD intimately. One thing I have learned is that there is no single way to experience ADHD. The traits may have familiar names, but how they show up in your relationships, work, emotions, motivation, and sense of self can be deeply personal.

I believe one of the keys to thriving with ADHD is learning to understand your own unique inner world—not simply learning how to make yourself function more like everyone else. That kind of self-understanding can develop when you have a space where you feel safe from judgment, are met with genuine empathy, and experience unconditional positive regard.

From there, we can become curious together. What helps you focus? What overwhelms you? What happens when you feel misunderstood or criticized? What patterns keep repeating? And what strengths have you developed that may have been overlooked because so much attention has been placed on what you struggle to do?

The goal isn't to force yourself into someone else's idea of how you should function. It's to understand yourself well enough to develop strategies that actually work for you—and, hopefully, to build a more compassionate relationship with the mind you already have.
https://neardeartherapy.com/adhd-therapy-for-adults-online-in-california-and-wisconsin/

www.neardeartherapy.com

Amy Ratkovich LMFT 124308

09/25/2026

Dear Friends and Community,

What if therapy wasn’t about fixing you?

So much of life can feel organized around improvement.

Be more productive. Communicate better. Manage your emotions. Break the habit. Solve the problem. Become a better version of yourself.

And sometimes those things are useful. But therapy can offer something different.

What if, before trying to change yourself, you had a place to understand yourself?

To become curious about your relationships and why certain dynamics seem to affect you so deeply.

To notice the patterns that keep repeating, even when you’ve promised yourself this time will be different.

To pay attention to your nervous system and what your body may be communicating before you have words for it.

To understand the things you keep carrying—expectations, responsibilities, old experiences, fears, relationships, and ways of being that may have made sense once but don’t fit quite as well anymore.

Therapy isn’t about someone else deciding who you should become.

At its best, it can be a professional relationship where there is enough time, curiosity, and space to discover more of who you already are—and to think more intentionally about the life you want to create.

Because sometimes change doesn’t begin with asking:

“What’s wrong with me?”

It begins with asking:

“What is happening within me—and what might I understand differently?”

Amy Ratkovich, LMFT 124308
Near & Dear Therapy | Psychotherapy for Women
Telehealth in California & Wisconsin
510-269-4808
www.neardeartherapy.com

09/23/2026

Dear Friends and Community,

What keeps showing up?

Sometimes the most important things to notice in our lives are not the things that happen once. They’re the things that seem to happen again and again.

The same argument with someone you love.
The same kind of relationship.
The same self-doubt when something starts going well.
The same urge to pull away, overthink, people-please, shut down, or take care of everyone else first.
The strange feeling that even though the circumstances have changed, somehow you’ve been here before.

Patterns aren’t necessarily evidence that something is wrong with you. Often, they developed for a reason. They may reflect ways you learned to protect yourself, maintain relationships, manage difficult feelings, or make sense of experiences at another point in your life.

But what once helped us can sometimes become limiting.

Therapy gives us a place to become curious about those patterns rather than simply judging ourselves for repeating them. We can begin asking: Why does this keep happening? What am I feeling here? What am I expecting from the other person? What happens in my body? What might I be protecting myself from? And is this still the way I want to respond?

You don’t have to have all of those answers before coming to therapy. In fact, discovering them together is part of the work.

Sometimes meaningful change begins with a surprisingly simple question:

What keeps showing up?

And then, instead of immediately trying to make it disappear, we get curious about what it might be trying to tell us.

Amy Ratkovich, LMFT 124308
Near & Dear Therapy
Telehealth in California & Wisconsin
510-269-4808
www.neardeartherapy.com

09/21/2026

Dear Friends and Community,
In my 15 years of practice, I have come to understand ADHD intimately. I believe one of the keys to thriving with ADHD is learning to understand your own unique inner world. That understanding can develop when you have a space where you feel safe from judgment, are met with empathy, and experience unconditional positive regard.
https://neardeartherapy.com/adhd-therapy-for-adults-online-in-california-and-wisconsin/

Address

1460 Maria Lane #300
Walnut Creek, CA
94598

Website

https://www.neardeartherapy.com/

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