LCSW-C, 20 years of experience
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, with over 19 years of combined experience as a pastoral care counselor, guidance counselor, and social worker. I've provided culturally sensitive and trauma informed counseling to individuals, couples, and families. Although, I’ve worked in school settings with children and adolescents quite extensively. I have also worked with adults, couples, and families. Some of the areas of concentration were marriage problems, communication problems, anxiety, unexplainable sadness, depression, stress, low self-esteem, ADHD related issues and/or life transitions.
In our first session together, we'll start with brief introductions, then complete an assessment to understand your level of functional, presenting problems, and your reason for seeking therapy. Thereafter, we will discuss treatment goals while continuing to build a therapeutic relationship to achieve those goals throughout the following sessions.
I recognize the importance of a collaborative working alliance in which you feel safe and comfortable expressing yourself while exploring ways to overcome life challenges. That said, my aim is to create a therapeutic space that not only feels safe and supportive but values your input while working towards your goals.
My clients whether young or older, are those who are eager to improve, but don't yet have the tools needed to make their goal a reality. Together, we will work collaboratively to meet your needs.
We have thoughts about events, various situations we face and/or find ourselves in, as well as experiences we have. How we perceive those events lead to feelings which also lead to corresponding action/behavior. When clients struggle with inaccurate beliefs that lead to negative feelings, we work together to examine those negative distortions to improve mental wellness. The goal through CBT is to reshape negative thought patterns so you can begin to view challenging situations more clearly and respond to them in effective way.
Some struggles require longer and more intense forms of treatment to address negative emotions, in which I tend to use DBT. The work involves but is not limited to building skills to emotionally regulate, building acceptance focus skills using strategies like mindfulness, increasing your self-worth and confidence, enhancing your communication by building interpersonal skills and assertiveness, as well as distress tolerance in which we will work to reduces symptoms of anxiety, stress, and depression.
Psychoeducation is used to empower you to understand and cope with your diagnosis. Understanding how your diagnosis impacts your level of functioning, allows you to develop strategies to effectively combat symptoms. It also allows you the opportunity to become the hero in your own narrative opposed to being subject to your diagnosis. That said, I also intertwined narrative therapy concepts with psychoeducation.
You may require a multi-modal approach rather than one treatment approach. It is my assertion that every client is different (i.e., presenting problem, treatment goals, expectations, and motivation for change). So, throughout our work together, the use of various proven methods are explored to determine the best combination of therapeutic tools to help you meet your treatment goals.
Depending on the presentation of the client with regard to problems faced, therapy will focus on solutions, emphasize client strengths and resources rather than the problems or past issues.