I will work with you to find strategies that support you to move past barriers and bring your life system into balance.  If memories from the past are presently causing distress, I focus on empowering you to use your strength in the present to free yourself of this baggage and move toward creating new healthy experiences. 

Assessment

Your intake appointment is an opportunity for us to get to know each other, but also allows me to get information from you that helps me to understand what your challenges are and create a plan for treatment.  I will ask questions about the length of time that you have had the issue, current and past relationships, symptoms of distress (trouble sleeping, lack of appetite, trouble concentrating, feeling down, etc), medical and mental health history, and determine what your goals are for therapy.  I may also have you fill out some assessment questionnaires that ask questions about what, if any, mental health symptoms you might be experiencing.  If warranted, I will work with you to arrive at a diagnosis for your symptoms using the DSM-5, which is the diagnostic manual that mental health providers use.

Treatment

Once we have determined what specific issues we want to work on, we will create a plan together that will outline our goals and what treatment methods we will use to get there.  The methods I use are informed by the following evidence based (scientifically proven) treatments:

o   Motivational interviewing helps you to identify blocks to achieving your goals and find the inner and outer resources to achieve desired outcomes. 

o   Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.  Negative patterns of thinking, feeling, and action are brought to light and you are given strategies to disrupt these patterns and create healthier responses to challenging life events.  

o   Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps to identify your values and teaches mindfulness skills to help you better address difficult thoughts and feelings that may arise, instead of avoiding them, so that you can be more present to your life and stay on course with your goals.

Perspective

As a psychotherapist I take an ecological systems, person-in-environment perspective.  I believe that your biology, race, culture, education, personal history, family history, and current circumstances and relationships all play an important role in how you experience the world.  Imbalances in one area of your life system may throw off other parts that at first glance may seem disconnected.  My job is to help you to gain insight into your life experience and empower you to use this understanding to achieve your goals.

I believe that you function best when you know your life’s purpose and are taking action to live it fully.  To this end, I see my job as helping you to identify this purpose and clear away the blockages to achieving it.

I take a strengths-based approach, which empowers you to utilize your own skills and resources to achieve your goals.  My job is to be present and reflect these strengths back to you.  I ask questions and provide reflections that will bring you closer to your own truth.  I will help you to become more resilient and in control of your life.  

I look forward to working with you!