Lydia Breer
I currently counsel teens, adults, and older adults with life transitions, career dysphoria, relationship difficulties, and anxiety. I offer compassion, empathy, and life experience. I ask questions, listen and offer skills training. I meet my clients where they are and do not formulate preconceived ideas or strategies to help my clients, rather, I seek to understand their view point, life experiences, and cultural influences into their therapy goals.
Get to know me
In our first session together, here's what you can expect
The first session is spent gathering current mental status, family history, a risk assessment, trauma history, social history, cultural factors, developmental history, previous therapy, spiritual practices, substance use, legal history, educational history, medical history including medications currently used, and history of the presenting problem.
The biggest strengths that I bring into our sessions
Empathic interaction, history of providing mental health care, careful listening, interactive dialogue, curiosity, cultural competency, life experience, and compassion.
The clients I'm best positioned to serve
Clients feeling "stuck". Thinking errors such as black and white thinking, discounting the positive, catastrophizing, , overgeneralization, all or nothing thinking, self blame, and emotional reasoning. ADHD challenges, grief, life transitions, and end of life experiences.
Location
VirtualMy treatment methods
Strength-Based
I am a proponent of the strengths philosophy which emphasizes drawing on client's inherent abilities and strengths to overcome challenges and obstacles while also learning new coping strategies. I incorporate psycho-education, role play, interactive feedback, supportive reflection, cognitive challenging, cognitive framing, and cognitive reframing.
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
The CBT model is based on the view that stressful states such as depression, anxiety, and anger are often maintained or made worse by exaggerated or biased ways of thinking. My role is to help clients recognize their individual style of thinking and to modify it by using evidence and logic.
Compassion Focused
The human brain and nervous system can change to counteract the effects of depression, anxiety, shame, fear, and anger. There is healing power in compassion. By using this technique, my clients will have the opportunity to open up formerly "stuck positions" and move forward toward healing.