My name is Krystyna Ksiazek. I live in Massachusetts. I am a Licensed Mental Health Clinician. I have been practicing psychotherapy for 30 years (last 1.5 years at Growtherapy) and never got sick of it. Seeing my clients succeed in therapy or their private lives adds meaning to my work. My area of interest is Trauma and Complex-PTSD, Anxiety Spectrum Disorders such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Agoraphobia, phobias, Eating disorders, Depression, and Grief. Also, I have experience in the treatment of anger management problems, self-harm behaviors, and dissociative/split personality disorders. I like working with Young Adults, Adults, the Elderly, men, and women. I like to reach out beyond the traditional scope of therapeutic interventions to alternative medicine based on the homeostatic model of health. I want to help clients build self-confidence and optimism and empower them to face new challenges, grow, and succeed as they never imagined. I like to build therapeutic alliances with the clients, and create an atmosphere where they know and feel that I am there for them and that I understand and support them. I do not mind spending more time with them if this is clinically necessary. Also, under exceptional circumstances, I allowed clients to contact me on the phone outside of therapy sessions to assist them in coping with extraordinary situations, guide them when they struggle with using newly acquired skills. I came to the USA from Poland. I had to start "from the bottom". I have been through many ups and downs and painful personal losses, including my mother, friend, and boyfriend, but I never gave up. My resilience, optimism, and positive outlook did not allow me to accept failure. Contrary, it motivated me to try harder. Most of the time it worked.
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
During the first therapy session, I usually start with a short conversation focused on getting to know each other and "breaking the ice." In the next step, I ask the question; "What brought you here?" Depending on the answer, I usually move to the core of the session - person-centered counseling - which is focused on gathering information on how clients became who they are now. I focused the conversation on how things happened rather than what happened. Here, I identify my primary goal of therapy, which is to help the client become more fully yourself, more authentic, and less attached to social roles and expectations. This phase usually leads to diagnosis and treatment planning. Each treatment plan is centered on ct's needs and has to be approved by the client.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
My biggest strengths are my broad educational background, experience, "big heart", passion, and motivation to help others. I do not mind putting extra effort, working painstakingly on one case, and extending my time and dedication to the client if their condition, family, extraordinary life events, etc. require it. Until I saw the results. I allow my clients to contact me if they feel an urgency to get extra help, are stressed out, or feel overstimulated. Often, I spend extra time on the phone with them. This works well towards increasing the chance for positive treatment outcomes. I believe that to increase the efficacy of the treatment, the clients must receive support at the right times, especially when they ask for it specifically.
About Krystyna Ksiazek
Specializes in
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VirtualMy treatment methods
Eclectic
During the intake assessment, I started with client-centered therapy, which focused on empathy and establishing rapport with the client, "breaking ice," active listening, validation of feelings and support, and unconditional positive regard. The conversation with the client during this phase of intake appointment allows me to gather information leading to the diagnosis ('), which I present to the client as we speak. The next step is treatment planning. My approach to treatment planning is entirely eclectic and is focused on matching intervention(s) to the client's needs. I used a broad variety of therapeutic interventions, but most frequently, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Skills Training, Psychodynamics, Psychoeducation, etc.
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps clients to identify and challenge dysfunctional, distorted cognitive beliefs and thoughts and maladaptive coping strategies. The most effective treatment includes the Thoughts/Feelings/Behavior triangle, cognitive restructuring, and thought-stopping. During the therapy, clients confront their thoughts and behaviors that kept them stuck for years in a frustrating struggle with ineffective, often self-developed interventions, leading to feeling powerless and hopeless. After discovering the new, more effective, and usually simple techniques, they smile, and nodding their heads, they say, "It makes sense!"
Exposure Response Prevention (ERP)
Exposure and Response Prevention is most effective in the treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The dynamic of this disorder is based on dysfunctional learning of self-helping techniques / behavioral, repetitive patterns that are supposed to extinguish anxiety associated with irrational, distorted beliefs, and irrational coping. But in fact, they internalize the dysfunctional behavioral patterns and create feelings of hopelessness, powerlessness, anger, and frustration that make clients socially isolated for years. One irrational belief triggering high anxiety would maintain compulsive behaviors for years. Quite often, the effective treatment could be reduced to an assessment of the onset of the irrational thought coincidently paired with compulsive behavior that was supposed initially to offset anxiety.