Sarah Kosiba LMFT, RPT

   My family has been living in Sioux City for many generations. It’s a legacy that I am proud of and continues to strengthen as my family’s roots grow deeper. I grew up in the Morningside area of Sioux City, IA. I graduated from East High and like many young adults, I left the area seeking adventure and excitement.

   What I did not realize was I had left a little piece of my heart with the people and community that I love. I am happy to be back home and to see Siouxlanders have remained strong despite the hardships endured over the past few years.

   I love narratives and have spent the past 20 years exploring the way we learn and connect to the stories around us. As an undergrad at the University of Iowa, I wanted to learn the skills necessary to tell another person’s story in a nonjudgmental and dignified way. Even early on, I believed that everyone’s story mattered; trials and success should be shared, celebrated, and honored.

   After my first child, I started to question the way Iowa had taught me to write in their Journalism program. What seemed to be missing were the details. I had to wonder if meaning wasn’t so much in the “big picture” but instead in all the little details we tended to dismiss. 

   So, I went back to school and earned an English Literature M.A. from the University of Northern Iowa. It was there that I discovered the healing power of stories as I studied the captivity narratives in Early American Literatures.

   The next academic chapter of my life sent me into the field of psychology.  I simply wanted to understand how and why words, meaning, and narratives could heal.  What I found was a new perspective on life. In 2019, I opened WR Family Therapy, LLC. in Cedar Rapids, IA. and relocated the business to Sioux City, IA in April of 2022.

   Our stories are often plagued with meanings assigned to events when we were too young to understand them. Children are good at filling in blanks with false information. The problem is, that this false information turns into the building blocks of self-esteem and identity. My office provides a safe place where clients can look at the details of their lives and reframe the events to give new meaning to past and present time.

   Sometimes it helps to sit with someone as we reflect on the information weighing down our hearts. I stive to be that person who listens and doesn’t judge while clients create new chapters and rewrite the story of their lives.