I am a licensed professional clinical counselor with 6 years of clinical experience serving a very diverse population after having worked 5 years in crisis services for a major metropolitan children's hospital. While there, I was able to gain significant experience using a wide variety of interventions from CBT, DBT, motivational interviewing, solution focused brief therapy, and strategic family therapy to help children, adolescents, and their family's during the aftermath of their child's mental health crisis. I look forward to translating those interventions and skills to helping my clients develop coping skills, identify maladaptive patterns of thinking and behavior, improve communication with supportive loved ones, and create realistic life goals for themselves then develop a plan to reach them. I am very open to feedback from my clients as to what would be helpful for them and how they like therapy to be structured. However, I am not conflict avoidant and I gently challenge my clients to step outside of their comfort zone because I truly believe no one would come to therapy if they weren't seeking change. I also believe that therapists are "in the business of putting ourselves out of business." I don't want my clients to need me forever so I aim to help them help themselves. In my free time, I dance (tap, ballet, and contemporary as well as just bopping around to music while I cook or clean), hike, and spend time with family or friends. I love to travel and aim to do as much of it as I can. I love learning whether it is about people, different cultures, new therapy styles, recipes, styles of dance or historical events. I also really enjoy cleaning and organizing for myself or helping others with those tasks.

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

During your first session, my clients should expect to complete a diagnostic assessment in order to identify the problems that brought them to therapy and the symptoms that or aspects of their environment that may be causing them. This will involve a significant amount of questions that may feel highly impersonal but this is a very important step in the therapeutic process. The actual diagnosis is not necessarily the goal but more symptom identification which is best achieved through diagnosis. Once this part is completed, if there is time left in the session, we can begin building rapport which is the process of getting know each other and building a level of trust that is absolutely essential to a client's therapeutic journey so, even though the session might seem very clinical and impersonal, it will not be like that for long. The rapport building phase can take several sessions unless there are safety issues that make it necessary to shift the focus to skill building sooner.

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

I really care about people and have an excess of empathy and compassion that I want to use to help others use my knowledge of the human mind to improve their lives. I'm not afraid to challenge my clients because as much as is it important for my clients to trust me and feel safe sharing the most personal aspects of their life with me, it is okay if they don't always like me. If my client not liking me for being honest with them and challenging them to help themselves results in them being happy or having a better relationship with a loved one, that means I did my job. I also try to just meet my clients where they are- emotionally, in their readiness for change, or comfort level in being open and honest with a new person.

About Amanda Gray

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