LCSW, 8 years of experience
Greetings! I've been working professionally for 8 years now with teenage adolescent clients and their families. I view the work I do as both my passion and purpose. It is a gift to be welcomed into my clients' lives to help support them during this wild time of transition, identity, and struggle. I'm looking forward to meeting and working with you. I received my degree from Colombia University and started my career in New York City working with Child Protective Services as a MDFT therapist. I then transitioned to helping create and establish a school based mental health clinic within the Murry Bergtraum High School Campus, servicing four high schools. Since moving to Connecticut, I've continued to work in the high school setting as a school based social worker. Together, we work on a variety of issues including trauma, anxiety, depression, BPD, Autism, etc.
I believe full transparency and collaboration in the foundation of a solid working therapeutic relationship. Typically, a first session with me will focus just on getting to know each other. At times it might feel casual and I will attempt to make a joke or two. Our session will feel like a normal conversation. During that conversation, I will get to know you and what brought you to my office, and you will get to know me and how I work. I will lay out for you the different therapeutic models I utilize and which ones I think the will be relevant to your treatment. I will seek your consent and approval on what our work will look like together and adjust and make changes to meet your where your at.
I have training in Trauma Focused CBT, Multidimensional Family Therapy, CBT, DBT, Motivational Interviewing, Solutions Focused Therapy, and more. What makes my approach different is while I utilize the above model my blended approach seeks to create a more casual therapeutic session. One that feels like a conversation where the Client is not expected to be only one talking and feel they always have to have something the say. My job is to guide. I seek to move past the "problem of the week" and help my clients build awareness to the deeper issues to create longer lasting change and healing.
I work best with clients who are ready for change. I suspect that you're unsure of how to make that change or what it might look like. You may not understand everything that is challenging you, how to describe your problems, or might even be afraid to share. That's okay! As long as you come into this work knowing you're ready for something different, I can help. My job is to help you discover the answers to your questions and discover what change means to you. Every Client is different, so my work with each looks different as well. I take pride in taking my time getting to know each Client, building trust, and creating a treatment plan collaboratively that works for you. Having worked with teenagers my whole career, I know that you are at a stage in your life where you don't have a lot of say over the things. So the least I can do when we start to work together is give you say over what our work looks like.