Hi, I'm Steal, a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). I provide therapy to clients residing in Texas and have served clients of all ages for several years, specifically for anxiety, trauma, insomnia, OCD, grief, depression, and challenges faced in relationships (i.e. break ups, conflicts, divorce, parenting). I have done this through individual therapy, couples therapy, marriage counseling, family therapy, and play therapy. My training and experience includes utilizing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Exposure Therapy, Motivational Interviewing (MI), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), CBT for Insomnia (CBT-I), Play Therapy, and Sandtray Therapy. My background is in psychology research (I co-authored two research articles published in scientific journals, one on anxiety sensitivity and caffeine, the other on mental health effects of COVID), I presented anxiety and caffeine research in Denver, CO at the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) Conference, and have studied philosophy extensively in college and on my own (particularly in the fields of consciousness, existentialism, and ethics). I occasionally peer review psychology manuscripts in my spare time, partly to keep my mind sharp and partly to continue building a healthy practice of skepticism. I have also administered psychological tests for intelligence, ADHD, autism, and personality. My experience also includes years of suicide risk assessment and safety planning. Some more personal things about me are that I am constantly seeking learning through research, reading, and various forms of study in topics ranging from quantum physics to philosophy. I love finding out more things about the world and about the second most important thing I love doing, is watching movies. I love digging deep into movies no one has ever heard of, to explore the unknown.
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
The first session often feels a bit overwhelming. I can assure you that this is completely normal. Talking about deep emotions and thoughts for the first time, and especially with someone you just met, can be incredibly daunting. Gathering information in the first session can feel tedious and makes many people wonder if the rest of therapy will be this way. Thankfully, once we discover what you want from therapy and the goals are established, the rest of therapy develops into a place you can come to talk about struggles and navigate life's difficulties free of judgment and full of guidance, tailored therapy techniques, and professional recommendations based on years of experience as a therapist and psychological training with research-supported information.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
One of my strengths as a therapist is guiding you on making sense of your thoughts, emotions, and experiences in a way that connects the various pieces together to gain greater insight and understanding of what you are going through. My clients have kindly shared with me that they feel genuinely cared for and more comfortable with me as a therapist than past therapists.
Describe the client(s) you are best positioned to serve.
The most rewarding thing about being a therapist is hearing someone tell me they didn't think things would ever change, but now they have. I'm amazed at how many clients have been able to tell me this with genuine conviction, with hope that they did not think was possible before. I enjoy the process of helping clients navigate the overwhelming aspects of life, and the various mental struggles that come with this. Most of my experience has revolved around helping others overcome anxiety and fear. I have found that despite the various forms fear can take, whether this be anxiety, phobias, trauma, nightmares, stress, or the draining effects of depression, one thing is often behind most fears I have dealt with: the fear of the unknown. Together, we can defeat whatever core fears are lurking underneath your own struggles, to help you gain the life you want, the life you deserve. A life of peace and happiness.
About Steal L Adcock
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VirtualMy treatment methods
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
For the past several years, I have interwoven Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) throughout therapy sessions to help clients increase their awareness of what might be holding them back from relief from their struggles and to help clients take control of the negative and stressful thoughts that impact how they view themselves, the world, and others. I use CBT, as needed, and with clients interested in this therapeutic approach. Together, you and I can use CBT to give you control over your thoughts instead of your thoughts controlling you. Things do not have to stay this way. Let's take back control now. Shifting the way we think can shift the way we feel and act, all things that impact our future in the long chain reactions of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Prolonged Exposure Therapy
For the past several years, I've provided exposure therapy as an option for reducing: social anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), phobias, agoraphobia, panic attacks, and trauma. This process involves listing out specific ways to face the fear or source of anxiety. For example, for a phobia of spiders, this list may look like talking about spiders, viewing pictures of spiders, watching videos of spiders, looking at a dead spider in a clear container, and holding a dead spider. These fears or sources of anxiety are ranked from least scary to most scary, using an anxiety scale, to help choose the least scary fears to face first. As we work up the ladder of fears, the lesser fears begin feeling less scary over time, until the bigger fears are eventually faced with less and less anxiety. You always have control over the exposures (fears) you will face, with small steps for facing the fear, coping skills for the anxiety, and when and how long the fear will be faced. I have used this technique with dozens of clients for the past several years and I have noticed fast results for most clients. The goal is to gradually reduce the fear over time, revealing that the fears you once had, no longer have control over your emotions.
Acceptance and commitment (ACT)
I have incorporated Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for the past several years for anxiety, worry, insomnia, depression, interpersonal stress, general stress, and trauma. We can use this through various mental activities to go from the mindset of controlling emotions and thoughts to becoming comfortable with letting emotions and thoughts come and go naturally.
Motivational Interviewing
I have used Motivational Interviewing (MI) for the past several years and believe what motivational interviewing believes, that while I might be the expert in my field, you are the expert in your life. The way this works is I let you choose the goals you want to work on first, I let you choose the treatment options you think may help you best, and I let you choose whether you want to change the focus of treatment in therapy. I see therapy as a collaboration between us. I use motivational interviewing to help draw out what you want to change in your life rather than what I want to change in your life, and we follow that change path together.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-i)
I am trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) through the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. If you find yourself struggling with sleep problems like insomnia, hypersomnolence, nightmares, jet lag, shift work sleep problems, and struggling to get out of bed in the morning then we can work together to utilize the variety of CBT-I evidence-based methods together. Depending on your unique sleep struggles, this may include a sleep diary, a comprehensive sleep plan, sleep hygiene, sleep restriction, stimulus control for sleep, CBT for thoughts that disrupt sleep, relaxation and mindfulness skills to relax into sleep or manage nightmare stress, and psychoeducation on common myths about sleep problems.