Services
Providing outpatient counseling for individuals and couples, I bring training and experience that makes a difference. In addition to counseling I provide mental health assessments, anger management evaluations, and anger management programming.
In addition to these services I offer conflict resolution for two or more in personal life situations, business and organizations.
A therapist’s fit for you as an individual is very important, in terms of both personality and skill set. Clients have described me as genuine, direct, nonjudgmental, practical and insightful. I believe in the value of humor and honesty as tools in counseling. I strive to help my clients define what a life well-lived means to them, and how to achieve that goal in a realistic, balanced way.
My counseling skills are best served with adults 18 an older. I limit the type of clients I see to the areas of my specialties. Those specialties are:
Therapies incorporated into counseling
Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)
Using a technique called bilateral stimulation, where the therapist attempts to activate the emotional and logical sides of the brain through a nonintrusive stimulus like blinking lights, will attempt to bring a client to a healthy and safe understanding of the emotions, sensations, insights, and memories that emerge from therapy.
Exposure Therapy
I use a 4-week program out of the University of Pennsylvania that incorporates exposure therapy with cognitive restructuring. The intent is to desensitize the anxious person of fears or ruminating thoughts while enhancing healthier thought processes. The program requires a commitment of one hour five days a week for 4 consecutive weeks to be completed at home. Once a week the individual meets with the therapist to review the work and to see if adjustments are needed in the assignments they have completed.
Psychodynamic Therapy
A therapeutic approach based on the idea that behavior and mental well-being are influenced by childhood experiences and inappropriate repetitive thoughts or feelings that are unconscious (outside of the person’s awareness). A person works with the therapist to improve self-awareness and to change old patterns so he/she can more fully take charge of his/her life.
Psychotherapy
A counseling approach that can help people learn how to take control of their life and respond to challenging situations with healthy coping strategies.
Psychoeducational Programming
This is an evidence-based therapeutic intervention for individuals to better understand and cope with life’s difficulties. The objective is to learn healthy coping techniques and problem-solving skills.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Aids in helping to identify and change thinking and behavior patterns that are harmful or ineffective, replacing them with healthier thoughts and functional behaviors.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
DBT is a specific type of CBT that helps regulate emotions. It is often used to treat people with chronic suicidal thoughts and people with borderline personality disorder, eating disorders, and PTSD. It teaches new skills to help people take personal responsibility to change unhealthy or disruptive behavior. It involves both individual and group therapy.
Mindfulness Therapy (MT)
Trauma, stress, and anxiety all benefit from an attempt to relax the autonomic nervous system, the primary mechanism in control of the fight-or-flight response. MT attempts to relax the mind and body by blocking out fears of the past, or of an unknown future event by focusing on the present through the use of our five senses.
Trauma-Informed Therapy
Noticing and embracing that trauma is the expectation, not the exception—all beings experience trauma, just different levels. There is an awareness of how trauma affects the brain, body, spirit, sense of the world. It asks, “What happened to you?” versus “What’s wrong with you?” Attempts to minimize re-victimization and facilitate recovery for all clients in the most culturally sensitive way I can. It understands that behaviors are understood not merely as complaints but as attempts to cope and survive.
Strength-Based Counseling
Developing an inventory of inherent strengths that are used to define an individual apart from what others think or say about them as an individual; thereby, providing them with building blocks for future success and problem-solving strategies. The intent is to draw attention to positive character strengths that already exist within and around them. This approach dictates that people aren’t defined by their problem, diagnosis, or illness. Instead, they are defined by their capacity for growth and change.