Colleen Winter
I have more than fifteen years of experience in mental health ranging from outpatient therapy to working in crisis settings to leading coping skills and wellbeing classes. My style is part confidante, counselor, and coach. My goal is to be of support while you move through difficult experiences or emotions and help you find the strength and skills to make the best of the challenges that life presents you.
First session
Our first session will be an opportunity to get to know each other. We'll get to know what led you to seek out therapy and how I can help. The session will move at your pace as we discover if we are a good fit to move forward.
Strengths
While I am trained in a number of modalities, I believe the best therapy is a guided conversation as opposed to a session full of complicated therapeutic techniques. I am a straight-forward communicator and, when appropriate, I like to incorporate humor in the session. I am genuinely curious about everyone's individual narrative and focus on the strengths and uniqueness of each person. I like to concentrate making small changes in actions or perspective. I feel we need to acknowledge the past, but I don't spend long sessions opposed to long sessions processing and rehashing it.
Ideal clients
I work well with people in transition such as college and graduate school, career change or advancement, divorce, new baby, empty nesting, retirement, or loss. Life can be full of sometimes difficult or unexpected changes--in our circumstances or our thoughts and feelings. I enjoy helping people find clarity as they make their way forward in life.
Treatment methods
Acceptance and commitment (ACT)
I prefer patients who are in a transitional state--career change, college or grad school, divorce, grief, empty-nest, retirement, etc. I find that the skills in ACT which include staying present, focusing on valued behaviors, and learning to make room and accept what is outside of our control are useful skills for these transitional times.
Eclectic
My therapeutic approach is greatly influenced by psychiatrist Dan Siegal's work The Mindful Therapist. It is a brain-based approach that focuses on interconnecting circuits of the brain, including bodily regulation, attunement, emotional balance, response flexibility, fear extinction, insight, empathy, morality, and intuition.
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
As a long time student of the Stoics which is the basis for CBT, I believe the biggest challenge every client faces is learning to understand what is within their control and what is outside of it AND how we can learn to spot unhelpful thinking patterns.