Hi. I'm Licensed Clinical Social Worker and have been providing psychotherapy services to diverse populations throughout my career. In my 40+ year career, I've served on, community organization and mental heath boards of directors, been program and clinical director of psychiatric residential centers, staff therapist and clinical directors of community mental health centers up to my retirement. Since retirement I maintain an online only therapy practice that specialized in helping younger and middle age adults, couples and parents facing a variety of challenges ranging from self esteem, significant life changes, addictive habits and behaviors, work and career, relationship struggles and other life circumstances causing emotional distress. I often use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as a therapeutic approach to address , blocks and barriers standing in the way of fully expressing ones spiritual nature to help begin to restore balance between mind body and spirits and improve one's quality of relationships and life. (Visit my website to learn more. The link is below)
When meeting clients for the first time I make an effort to understand their situation, circumstances and issues their seeking help for, learn what they want and help them fashion goals to be achieved. I've found this is an excellent way to get to know each other, ensures we're on the same page about what you need, which establishes the course of therapy.
CBT is very useful in revealing Cognitive Distortions. The American Psychological Association defines cognitive distortions as “faulty or inaccurate thinking, perceptions or beliefs,” Negativity is often the defining characteristic. For some of us, distorted thinking is a momentary blip. For others they become the illusions that trap them in their emotional distress and can lead to mental health conditions that interfere with a healthy level of functioning. Or serves as blocks standing in the way of success. My book on this subject, Escape from Insanity Illusions and Lies, (https://www.overcomingtheinsanity.com/the-book) offers a therapeutic approach using a model that can remove the blocks standing in the way of the life you want to live. By addressing one’s spiritual nature through the psychotherapy process, I've gained a deeper understanding of the human condition out of which cognitive distortions arise. Helping clients identify and navigate the traps of cognitive distortions has become invaluable. I supplement CBT with Psychodynamic techniques to help clients resolve their past and position them to succeed in accomplishing their treatment and life goals.
My approach to therapy is primarily Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, better known as CBT. This aims to help people to objectively evaluate how to think about themselves, other people, and events in their lives. This process can help to strengthen the neural connections that lead to more balanced thinking and healthy behavior choices. With knowledge and experience of other therapy methodologies I can help you become aware of thought processes and the connection to unwanted outcomes through self-discovery. This can help you approach difficult situations with more rationality and balanced thinking to make better choices. This can be very useful when facing emotional challenges related to mental health conditions as well as daily life challenges, help manage symptoms that can cause people to feel trapped in their emotional distress and find useful options and solutions that can lead to an improved quality of life. Ed collaborates with clients to decide the best approach by encouraging clients to voice their thoughts and feelings about a problematic situation and teach CBT methods, and other techniques, to encourage management of symptoms outside the therapy session. Ed has helped many individuals reshape their negative thought patterns and expose cognitive distortions to help develop positive thinking and behavior patterns to restore the balance between mind, body and spirit, and to help mend important relationships improve the quality of their lives.
CBT techniques provide useful tools to help couples learn valuable skills to improve their interactions with their significant other. By helping couples discover the origins of how they come to think about relationship interactions, rooted in their thinking, they better understand their emotional reactions expressed in behavior that has been problematic in their relationships. Helping couples identify and improve their communication style promotes the process of self discovery to reveal how past experiences are brought forward to the present and the negative effects they have on their current relationship. This helps couples to re evaluate their choices when different or new options and solutions are discovered to choose differently. By drawing on years of experience in working with couples in relationship counseling, facilitating couples retreats and workshops for 7 years, I've helped hundreds of couples improve their communications, interact in more positive ways and strengthen the connection with their partners. If you're at the point where you're ready for a change and ready to leave the stress and discomfort you're feeling behind, I'm prepared and ready to help. All you have to do is take that brave first step and schedule our first session and get you and your partner on the road to feeling better today.
One treatment approach doesn't work with everyone. Over my career I've been trained in a variety of methodologies and techniques to meet the needs of my clients from Behavior Modification when there's behavioral concerns, to grief therapy to those experiencing loss with working through the grieving process, to parenting young children or adult children, to psychodynamic therapy to help client become aware and understand the influence of the past on present behavior. If you're at the point where you're ready for a change and ready to leave the stress and discomfort you're feeling behind, I'm prepared and ready to help. All you have to do is take that brave first step and schedule our first session and get you and on the way to feeling better today.