LMFT, 12 years of experience
New to Grow
I am a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist with over 12 years of professional experience coming alongside clients on their journey towards change and wholeness. I believe you are the expert of your story and have the strengths to assist you in becoming the best version of yourself. It truly takes courage to seek help in order to lead a more fulfilling and satisfying life. On a professional level, my experience encompasses working with adults and college-age young adults who experience stress, relational conflict, anxiety, trauma, and grief/loss. I pay attention to how clients’ past experiences may present themselves in the client's present realities and assist clients gain greater awareness of these dynamics. I also incorporate a culturally competent approach to therapy that can include a client’s faith tradition or spirituality, ethnic and cultural background, disability identity, and/or sexual and gender identity. I am here to support and empower you through your journey in becoming the best version of you.
Our first session will be a little different than subsequent sessions because we need to review some legal and ethical aspects of therapy included in the informed consent. The informed consent is the agreement between client and therapist and this document will be provided prior to our first session. Typically, after our introduction and brief discussion about what brings a client to therapy, we will review the informed consent and answer any questions about the nature of the therapeutic relationship and overall agreement between client and therapist. Once we finish with this portion of the session, we spend the rest of the session exploring what brings the client into therapy in order to begin the process of helping the client formulate what they want to get out of therapy.
One of my greatest strengths as a therapist is the ability to bring my whole self into the session and hone in on their on emotions. That means bringing my emotions into the session and utilizing them as a tool in order to understand my clients' emotional experience during the session. By doing so, I then mirror it back to them which opens up the door for my clients to go deeper into their emotional experience and gain inside into themselves and their lives.
Welcome! I'm Rosalba and I'm honored to meet you. Starting therapy can be nerve-racking especially as you consider opening up to someone new and share personal aspects of life that may be painful or uncomfortable. But maybe you are also hopeful at the possibility that although you may be struggling with either anxiety, depression, or whatever may be keeping you from living a satisfying life, that change is possible and therapy can help you get there. I offer to join you in that quest and help you explore how you want your life to change by taking inventory of your resources and strengths that can help you move forward. But that also means exploring what is preventing you from moving forward and contributing to what brings to therapy. We will journey back in time and explore how some of your past experiences or patterns may be repeating themselves in your present life, and by doing so help you gain the kind of insight that will help you take the necessary steps for meaningful change. If you feel ready to take that step, I am here ready to come alongside you and support you through that process.
My main goal as a therapist is to come alongside my clients and help them with whatever distress or life disruption they may be experiencing. In order to do that, I tailor my approach and method depending on what my client needs and what they want to work on. No one is a one size fits all nor do I use only one clinical treatment method. I am flexible with utilizing various theories such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that focuses on thoughts feelings and behavior, or may use a Psychodynamic approach where clients will explore how early formation affects certain interpersonal difficulties and relationship patterns. These are but some examples of my treatment approach in the last 12 years where clients have benefited from a personalized and holistic approach that takes into account a person's mind, physical, emotional, and spiritual health in a unified way.