Hello! My name is Jay Doyle and I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California with 24 years of counseling experience. I have experience helping clients who are dealing with stress and anxiety, trauma, relationship issues, grief and loss, navigating life transitions, and issues of self esteem and confidence. Currently, I work with adult individual clients via teletherapy. Before working as a counselor, I had another, very different career, as an engineer. Although I switched out of that profession, I greatly value the critical thinking and problem solving skills that I learned while studying and working as an engineer. I think that those skills make me a better therapist.
I love working with adult individual clients who are struggling with stress and anxiety and need coping tools to feel better and improve their lives. In the first session, I will find out about you, how I can help you and answer any questions about treatment that you may have. We will start figuring out some strategies to help you start to feel better as soon as possible. I want you to feel welcomed, supported, and comfortable.
I want to help you by understanding your strengths to move forward in finding solutions and learning better ways to cope with the challenges you are struggling with. I have been described as warm and empathetic, a good listener who also provides guidance when needed. I am open minded and want to learn about you.
With CBT, the focus of therapy is on thinking patterns, understanding the connection between thoughts, feelings and actions, working on finding coping strategies that are more effective in reducing anxiety, improving mood, and increasing satisfaction with life.
DBT involves developing skills to manage emotions that feel overwhelming. I often work with people on understanding how their negative emotions get activated and strategies such as mindfulness help manage these feelings.
Many people don't want to spend several months or years in therapy but to deal with an issue or problem with which they are currently struggling. My approach is practical, present based but forward looking and using a person's strengths and capabilities to effect change and feel better. As with CBT and DBT, this is an evidence based approach.