6 years of experience
I have a Doctor of Philosophy in Curriculum and Instruction in Counselor Education from University of South Florida in 2013. I have over 10 years of school counseling experience, 25 years of nursing experience where two of those years were in psychiatric nursing and five years of mental health counseling. My areas of special interest and experience are working with individuals with a chronic illness, adolescent with anxiety and depressive issues, and group counseling specializations. I have also counseled children and adults with career readiness after being diagnosed with a chronic illness. I will also conduct medical/health counseling to persons with health concerns. I have recently been trained as a EMDR counselor with trauma and PTSD counseling experience. I am Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) trained from June 2023. I am a National Certified Counseling from National Board of Certified Counselors. I am licensed as school counselor in the state of North Carolina. I am a registered in the Bahamas as a registered nurse license. I am a licensed as a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor in North Carolina.
In our first session together, we’ll start with brief introductions, then dive into specific challengers you’re facing. This will help me create a tailored plan to for us to work through in follow-up sessions. We will complete a complete assessment to explore personal, social, emotional, medical, and mental challenges.
Your counselor is competent in Cognitive Information Process (CIP) and group counseling technique skills. You can expect to learn specific skills intended to enhance relationships, enhance relaxation time, or self-esteem, and you will have the opportunity to practice new skills within the safety of the counseling sessions. You will also receive counseling related to return to work from a chronic illness. While the process of learning and change is sometimes uncomfortable, you can expect no harm to come within the counseling relationship. Should you find, in practicing your new skills at home, school, or work that the result has an unintended negative effect in your life; you can also expect to bring that information to your next appointment, where modifications can be considered. Always, your sense of safety is the primary concern and focus.
I have had over five years of mental health counseling experience, two years of psychiatric nursing/counseling experience and worked with clients and families with disorders like trauma and PTSD, substance abuse (alcohol, marijuana), anxiety, severe depression, severe psychiatric disorders. I also counseled school aged children with mild anxiety issues, academic, career, and emotional concerns. In addition, with my background in nursing and research experience in chronic illness such as breast cancer and end stage renal disease, I will be able to counsel clients with health-related conditions. I will also be able to counsel persons experiencing career indecisions and conflicts.
The counseling sessions will be guided by cognitive-behavioral theory (CBT), cognitive information processing, solution focus therapy and reality therapy for counseling. Generally speaking, CBT focuses on our thoughts which cause our feelings and behaviors/actions rather than external factors, like people, situations, and/or life events. The benefit of this theory is its goal is to assist the client in making changes to the way he or she thinks so that they can feel better which in turn will affect the client’s actions or behavior.
Eye movement or other forms of bilateral stimulation activate your problem-solving process, which happens during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep when your eyes dart back and forth. By focusing on a specific problem and its negative and positive emotions, sensations, and beliefs, then adding bilateral stimulation, your brain begins problem-solving. Since you are focused on the specific problems, your brain can work through it more effectively than what may randomly come up while sleeping. Cultural consideration in explaining EMDR: Brain based language is heplful in most situations. Keep in mind that you can adjust explanations based on the cultural needs of your clients (EMDR Training Manual, 2023, p. 62).
Person-centered therapy, also known as Rogerian therapy or client-based therapy, employs a non-authoritative approach that allows clients to take more of a lead in sessions such that, in the process, they discover their own solutions. During person-centered therapy, a therapist acts as a compassionate facilitator, listening without judgment and acknowledging the client’s experience without shifting the conversation in another direction. The therapist is there to encourage and support the client without interrupting or interfering with their process of self-discovery, as they uncover what hurts and what is needed to repair it.