Allison Bernier, LICSW - Therapist at Grow Therapy

Allison Bernier

Allison Bernier

(she/her)

LICSW
18 years of experience
Virtual

Hi! I’m a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker in MA and RI. I received my Masters from Rhode Island College. I have been practicing for 18 years and have experience treating anxiety, depression, relationship issues, parent child conflict and LGBTQIA’s+ issues. I’ve worked with children, adolescents and adults in a variety of settings - schools, residential placements, emergency rooms, inpatient hospitals, community based and offices. I take a person-centered strengths based approach and love doing therapy with children, adolescents and adults to help them navigate and cope with challenges in their life.

What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?

In our first session together, we'll start with brief introductions, then dive into the specific challenges you're facing. This will help me create a tailored plan for us to work through in follow-up sessions.

Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.

Having worked with various populations for the past 18 years, I've developed a variety of techniques for helping you (a) identify the root cause of your challenges and (b) create a tailored plan that leads to measurable progress.

Appointments

Virtual

My treatment methods

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-i)

I’ve been using CBT in my practice for the past eighteen years. It’s helped many clients challenge reoccurring thoughts and manage their anxiety and depression. 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.

Gender-affirming therapy

Gender-affirming care is a range of medical, behavioral, psychological, and social interventions that help people align their gender identity with their lives. This care is typically started after a mental health professional diagnoses gender dysphoria, a condition where a person experiences psychological distress due to a conflict between their assigned gender and their gender identity. Gender-affirming care can help people improve their mental health and overall well-being.

Motivational Interviewing

Motivational interviewing (MI) is a short-term, patient-driven therapy approach that helps people identify problems, set goals, and develop plans to achieve them. It's a strengths-based approach that assumes you have the ability to change, and it's often used to help people resolve ambivalence and insecurities. MI can help you build self-confidence, increase motivation, and reduce the risk of relapse. It can also help you learn to take responsibility for your actions and feel more empowered to make positive changes.

Couples Counseling

Couples counseling is a type of psychotherapy that helps couples improve their relationship and conflict resolution. As a licensed therapist, I work with couples to help them build healthy relationships and solve issues.

Structural Family Therapy

Structural family therapy (SFT) is a type of therapy that focuses on how family members interact with each other, and how the family functions as a system. My aim is to improve communication and encourage changes to the family's structure, or rules.