Licensed to practice in Illinois and accepts 9 insurances. Specializes in Addiction, Depression, Women's Issues and 5 more.
New to Grow
I would best describe myself as someone who seeks to provide a compassionate and effective approach to people seeking change. It takes a lot to become a therapist. I often think of a therapist as a rock in a tumbler. We spend a lot of time smoothing out our own rough edges so that we can be helpful to others. Your life is your own. I work with people to discover what they want and what's standing in their way.
By the end of the first session, we will have reviewed the materials you completed for the intake and identified a starting point. I hope that, through this process, you will have a sense of my collaborative and compassionate approach, so that you feel comfortable making a decision about whether we are a good fit for one another.
I love working clients and have a good working memory to link patterns together. I use humor and compassion to join with you on this journey, however long or short.
Most of my career has been spent working with those who have mood and substance use disorders, along with their family members. In addition to continuing this emphasis, I also want to work with professionals who are trying to care for themselves while caring for others, aligning with my recent doctoral research about ways to influence self-care behavior. Prospective clients can include a broad range of disciplines, including healthcare, law, education, and social work.
Other specialties
I identify as
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
So often, we get caught up in a negative thinking loop that contributes to our feelings of depression and anxiety. I teach CBT using handouts to help them identify thought distortions, such as "all or nothing thinking," "fortune-telling error," and "emotional reasoning." We examine their thoughts and work to reframe them into more reality-based ones.
Narrative
We live through stories, about ourselves, others and those we imagine in our minds. We are born into other people stories and learn that to be successful, we need to create a story that aligns with expectations of our families, friends, and our culture. Except, our paths often do not "conform" to these expectations and we find ourselves questioning what we are here to do. Narriative therapy is about examining your story and learning how to re-tell it to support and define yourself in a new way, leading you to the direction that fits better for you.
Psychodynamic
We are shaped by our childhood attachments and experiences. These relationship dynamics carry forward in our choice of friends, partners, careers and feelings about ourselves. Though examining your family history using a genogram, we can begin to understand patterns that have contributed to your current life and learn how to manage these lingering representations.