Therapeutic Approaches

rocksI work with adult individual, couples, and family counseling. I do not work in individual work with children unless they are medically ill. Some areas that are commonly addressed in therapy include:

  • Stress management and mood- including depression, anxiety and panic.
  • Grief: this includes loss of people, animals, places, or things.
  • Trauma both developmental traumas and also major events
  • Relationship Issues individual patterns as well as couple and family dynamics, LGBT relationships
  • Life Transitions such as leaving home for college, coming out, getting married or divorced, parenting, and other significant life changes
  • Dealing with Medical illnesses– this includes the psychological and physical impact of the illness on both the individual and the family.
  • Work and career issues: help with managing stress, setting priorities, setting good boundaries, effective interpersonal communication. Assessing current and future career goals.
  • Adjustment to culture: this can include differences in regional culture (ie, south vs north), as well as differences adjusting to a different country. Help recognizing and addressing the challenges of acculturation, such as understanding the impact of culture on communication patterns. Can be of particular importance in partners from different cultures.
  • Personal Growth becoming more aware of, able to grow into, and free to express your true self

Specific Areas of Treatment Specialization:

Strength Development and Positive Psychology: Positive Psychology helps people recognize and develop their predominate strengths to be able to more effectively utilize them in their approach to problems. Positive psychology helps people develop more positive attitudes, learn how to take a more productive perspective, and consider more creative and flexible approaches. I also use this approach in helping couples as well.

Medical Psychology: I have worked extensively with people and families coping with medical conditions. I am educated in numerous physical illnesses, and am willing to learn and work with people experiencing less common illnesses. I understand the stresses and demands that medical procedures have on both the individual and the family. While I predominately work with adults, I do work with children who are ill.

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR): EMDR is an empirically validated approach that uses right/left brain processing to integrate a trauma. Trauma can be a “Big T” traumas–the kinds of major events that often lead to acute trauma and PTSD, such as assault, combat, and accidents. It is also helpful for “little t” traumas–situations that you may not consider major but mattered to you, such as teasing, neglect, and phobias, to name a few. During an EMDR session, the client focuses on a disturbing or traumatic memory while simultaneously listening to tones, following movement with the eyes, or feeling small pulses. EMDR is a very effective and relatively fast treatment compared with other treatment options in regards to certain traumas.

Couple’s work: My work with couples is very eclectic, drawing on numerous theoretical orientations depending on the unique presenting problems.

Cognitive Behavioral: regardless of the presenting problem and the therapeutic approach I take, all my approaches will help you become aware of what you are thinking and how you are behaving. Our work together will ultimately help you modify your automatic thinking and behaving patterns so that you are happier and more effective in managing your life challenges.

I work with a wide range of emotional and behavioral issues providing services that span from therapy for depression and grief counseling to parenting support, couples counseling and beyond.  In a comfortable and supportive atmosphere, I offer a highly personalized approach tailored to each of my clients individual needs.