LCSW, 13 years of experience
Hi there! I provide teletherapy services in North Carolina and Texas! As a trauma-based therapist, I help you find the clarity you need to make big decisions, navigate life transitions, and process emotionally difficult experiences. Partnering with you, I help you overcome the impact trauma has had on your life, improve your self-esteem, and achieve transformational change through self-discovery and self-acceptance. I am a person-centered, strengths and values-based clinician who will help you process life's most complicated events by creating a safe space that cultivates growth from within. I offer holistic, trauma-based approaches that are culturally sensitive. I serve adult clients and have extensive experience serving the military community (Veterans, Servicemembers, spouses). I am actively serving in the Army Reserve as a Clinical Social Worker and have deployment experience. I have a Master of Science in Social Work (MSSW) degree from the University of Texas at Austin, I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), and I'm a Board-Certified Diplomate in Clinical Social Work (BCD). I am passionate about working with clients who are ready to make serious changes in their lives and are open to holistic and non-traditional ways to get the results they want. I incorporate somatic mind-body techniques in addition to cognitive-based approaches in therapy. I work best with clients who are highly motivated to do agreed-upon homework outside of the therapy session to optimize their progress in therapy. I am most effective with clients who want to learn and practice healthy coping skills that are personalized for them (not a cookie-cutter approach). Clients who are willing to hear direct, yet compassionate feedback in the change process have the best results when working with me.
It is my intention to make you feel safe and understood when you come to therapy. Our initial session will be a discussion about what brings you to therapy and what you’d like to change. I gather your pertinent medical and mental health history so that I can consider this information when developing your diagnostic assessment and treatment plan. After narrowing down an area of focus, I help you find solutions, provide tools, and offer support throughout the change process. To support the outcomes you want to experience, I assign homework that feels purposeful and applicable to you. I encourage work to be done outside of each session to build confidence in learning new skills. An example of homework could be an educational video, a simple journaling practice, or completing a daily mood tracker. Our work will be collaborative; you will have choice and autonomy along the way. In each session, I apply the social work principle of the person-in-environment perspective, where we consider who you are in relation to the internal and external factors of your life. It is important to me that I engage with you in a culturally sensitive, nonjudgmental, and professional way to create safety and trust in the therapeutic relationship.
I have always been passionate about helping people find solutions to complex problems. I was raised in a military family and learned very quickly how to adapt to a life of continuous change. I have experience in outpatient therapy clinics as well as experience in residential settings with people who are living with PTSD. My therapeutic foundation is in trauma and psychodynamic theory, as we look at how your past experiences may affect you today. I have completed training in cognitive behavioral therapy, solution-focused brief therapy, exposure therapy, cognitive processing therapy, and somatic mind-body therapy. These diverse specialties allow me to tailor the therapy experience to meet the unique needs of my clients. The healing journey is not linear and may look different for everyone. Successful treatment outcomes for my clients looks like confidence in their ability to manage difficult situations independent of therapy. Successful treatment begins with the understanding that you will leave therapy equipped with more tools to tackle life's challenges than you started with, and that this is a short-term solution that can lead to life-changing, long-term results.
I am passionate about working with clients who are ready to make serious changes in their lives and are open to holistic and non-traditional ways to get the results they want. I incorporate somatic mind-body techniques in addition to cognitive-based approaches in therapy. I work best with clients who are highly motivated to do agreed-upon homework outside of the therapy session to optimize their progress in therapy. I am most effective with clients who want to learn and practice healthy coping skills that are personalized for them (not a cookie-cutter approach). Clients who are willing to hear direct, yet compassionate feedback in the change process have the best results when working with me.
I utilize a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) approach with because it is evidenced-based and effective at empowering my clients to take control over their mental health and rewrite the narrative of their lives. CBT is focused on understanding the relationship between our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and how that impacts our overall well-being. My clients learn how to recognize the impact negative thoughts have on mood and actions and practice reframing negative thoughts into productive ones.
I utilize a whole health approach to treat Trauma that is rooted in evidence-based practices, alternative medicine, and tailored specifically to each client. I educate my clients on the neuroscience of trauma in the brain and teach them how to understand and manage symptoms in ways that are based on client values and strengths.
As a Filipino-American Woman with ethnically mixed heritage, I am very mindful of the impact that self-identity has psychological well-being and understanding of oneself. In my practice, I am compassionately curious to learn about the way you self-identify and how that impacts how you view and understand the world around you, as well as how you've experienced it. Culturally Sensitive Therapy is a nonjudgemental approach to helping clients recognize how aspects of culture (regional, generational, ethnic, specific group) may influence aspects of wellness (in both helpful or non-helpful ways). Including this focus in my therapy has helped my clients understand themselves in ways they may have not explored before.