Hi! Im a Licensed Clinical Social Worker from Chicago. I am comfortable working with persons of color. I have a high priority for cultural respect. I have been working as a Child and Adult Therapist since 1987. I have a BA from Hope College, and a MSW from Michigan State University. I have worked as a therapist in Michigan, Washington, Illinois, and Alberta, Canada. I use a collaborative style of therapy to help my customers rediscover lost aspects of themselves and to develop new skills for coping with new difficulties. I still work with children above age 10, teens, adults, seniors, and couples. Children always need to be seen with their care-givers.
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
In my first session with customers, I found out who they live with, who keeps track of them, and what they do with their time. I then ask them "What would be your best hopes for counseling?" I then may ask them how they would know things were improving by the end of the fourth session, or what a miracle day would look like! From here we begin to co-construct a desired future that will compete with whatever inner, social, or environment challenge my customer is facing.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
My strength as a provider is the wisdom about "attachment" that I have painstakingly been taught by my customers over the past 35 years. These are Curiosity, Acceptance, Empathy, and Playfulness. This is now the hard-earned commitment that I provide my customers. In terms of technique, I continuously ask my customers for feedback about what was helpful and what was missing. This is the best way for me to stay attuned with my customer's expectations.
About Bill Swieringa
Appointments
Virtual
My treatment methods
Solution Focused Brief Treatment
I very quickly attempt to identify a customer's specific strength that they can apply to their current challenge. I keep a careful watch out for heroic attitudes, commitments, resilience, and achievements. I focus on exceptions to difficulties as one way to develop a solution set.
Mindfulness-Based Therapy
Some customers with intractable panic disorder or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder will benefit from a daily practice of meditation. I teach all forms. Meditation builds cognitive flexibility for quickly shifting out of traumatic memories. Mindfulness training is one type of Meditation practice.
Trauma-Focused CBT
Some customers have profound experiences of emotional dys-regulation that they cannot connect with identifiable feelings, thoughts or experiences. I use a visual teaching method to help customers identify feelings states and then develop coping plans for each state of activation.
Family Therapy
I see children in the context of family therapy. Most often the parents are the actual customers for change. They also have the greater capacity for change. I typically start with a Solution Focused approach for the entire family. Solution Focus means that every person in the family has a role to play in the resolution of the issue that brought them in. Everyone's experience matters. My work as the therapist is to tease out exceptions to difficulties and imagine how these can be amplified to become solutions.
Couples Counseling
I see couples in the context of Solution Focused Therapy. In some cases I also move on to mutual problem solving and mutual trauma understanding. I see same sex couples. I see couples with a trans gender member.
