Cheryl Cerasoli
Cheryl Cerasoli
I work mostly with adults and I specialize in many areas of stress-related issues including anxiety, trauma and PTSD, grief, burnout, infidelity and aging using Cognitive Processing (CPT) and Cognitive Behavioral (CBT) Therapies, and Attachment, Compassion-focused (CFT), Emotionally-focused and Humanistic therapies to help a client develop skills to move towards success and relief. I have a foundational belief in each person's core goodness. Using kindness and compassion I soften the external weapons each of us choose when feeling threatened, whether by our sadness, our anxiety, our loneliness, our self-imposed expectations or our negative judging voice of disdain. One of my strongest motivations in doing this work is to help my client uncover or discover who she/he is at core—that person you were born to be before all the stuff of others’ opinions or demands were layered over you. I also believe strongly that each of us has needed a person to really hear us as we attempt to recognize or to verbalize or to honor our needs—with no judgment or dismissal or diminishing of these. I have a lifelong curiosity about human behavior and the human brain including personally looking for an explanation for and/or a reason to change my own behaviors. My work has been in areas where human beings are challenged and may need help in finding more useful/effective/reaffirming choices, including with reactive athletes with anger issues, male perpetrators of domestic violence, individuals suffering the deep hurt of betrayal in infidelity, at-risk teens needing to feel they belong and that they are confident in who they are.
Get to know me
In our first session together, here's what you can expect
My background in both psychology and sports psychology has always guided me more in the direction of coach than therapist, in other words, building on a person's strengths to encourage the most lasting and powerfully effective new behaviors through a warm and collaborative style. Some of my strongest skills include a boundless curiosity in individual differences and similarities, a keen sense of and deep respect for a client's talents, strengths and beauty gained through observation and conversation, a broad range of experience in various areas of life, a lifetime connection to the power inherent in each human being to adapt, to absorb, to change and to thrive, and a humbleness in seeking all relevant information as adjunct to my repertoire of knowledge in any area needed by my client.
The treatment methods and tools I utilize
The first session is pivotal in assuring that the client feels safe to talk. I always ask myself how I can most effectively help this client connect enough to want to move forward towards changing whatever is causing them stress/discomfort/inner turmoil/panic/fear/hurt. Also I need to share my understanding of the difficulty in connecting with a stranger for any of us. I think it is key that setting a goal be presented as a door opener. I believe goals are best gone towards only after there is a true match up for the client between seeing that change is available and feeling able to adopt it. It is a shared activity begun first by hearing the client and by offering possible directions, collaboratively making choices, and then my supporting each step of their journey and effort.
The biggest strengths that I bring into our sessions
I've worked with military combat victims and victims of sexual assault for much of my career doing this work with both individuals and in groups. I have developed curriculums with proven results in guiding victims away from reactive fear-based behaviors and towards reclaiming control in both choices being made and the resulting strength felt in these. Using a coaching model, I guide anger-driven individuals to other options, working to help a client see the positive benefits in practiced new behaviors unlocking them from habitually negative choices, with their inherent residual feelings of guilt and sadness. I use Attachment/Emotionally-focused therapies, to help individuals identify and strengthen their core sense of self with skills to substitute for helplessness of anxiety/depression.
The clients I'm best positioned to serve
Trauma victims Anxiety and depression sufferers Infidelity healing Anger Compassion therapy with self-esteem issues Grief Aging