LCSW, 12 years of experience
Hi there! I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in the states of Florida and Maine with over 10 years of clinical experience. I specialize in working with adults and teens struggling with issues related to stress and coping with life’s changes, anxiety, trauma, identity, body image, self-esteem, and LBTQIA+. I earned my undergraduate degree from Mary Baldwin University in Staunton Virginia where I majored in Sociology. I continued my education at Springfield College in Springfield Massachusetts and earned my master's degree in Social Work.
In our first session together, we'll start with brief introductions, then dive deeper into the challenges you're facing and goals to help you get to where you want to be. This will allow us to develop a treatment plan together that we'll work through in follow-up sessions. You can expect a warm, inviting, nonjudgmental environment where we will begin our work together. Take a moment to acknowledge that you've taken the first step towards bettering your mental health because, let's be honest - starting therapy can be empowering, confusing, or scary, all at the same time. I strive to create a safe and welcoming environment that allows clients to explore obstacles with concerns related to anxiety, depression, and/or self-care. I focus on helping clients develop assertive communication and boundaries with themselves and those around them that can help improve their quality of life. Counseling can foster personal development in whatever way you may be seeking and help build the life you so deeply deserve. If that's what you're looking for, I'm here when you're ready to share.
Having worked with adults of all ages and teens for more than ten years, I have developed reliable systems to examine the root causes of your struggles to assist you in better understanding yourself and making long-lasting meaningful change in your life.
I enjoy working with clients who are eager to improve their mental health and overall quality of their lives, but may be struggling with developing skills that help them reach their goals. They often feel stuck, overwhelmed and anxious. As a therapist and partner of a Marine Corps. war veteran, working with veterans and their families is near and dear to my heart. I know and understand the experience of deployment and the many sacrifices military families make to serve our country. I am grateful for your sacrifices and the opportunity to help you heal.
I’ve been using CBT in my practice for the past ten years. It’s helped many clients challenge reocurring thoughts and manage their anxiety. We’ll use CBT to recognize how your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors influence each other. We’ll then use that knowledge to change your thinking patterns, which will help you lead a less anxious and stressed life.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) operates on the theory that if you have a history of depression and/or anxiety and become distressed, you are likely to return to those automatic cognitive processes that triggered depression or anxiety the past. The combination of mindfulness and cognitive therapy is what makes MBCT so effective. Mindfulness helps you observe and identify your feelings while cognitive therapy teaches you to interrupt automatic thought processes and work through feelings in a healthy way. I have been using MBCT in my practice for more than eight years and have seen it improve the lives of dozens of patients.
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is a specific type of cognitive behavioral therapy that helps patients learn how to modify and challenge unhelpful beliefs related to trauma. CPT is generally delivered over 12 sessions with the goal of assisting patients in creating a new understanding and conceptualization of the traumatic event so that it reduces its ongoing negative effects on current life.