LCSW, 11 years of experience
New to Grow
I currently counsel teens, adults, and older adults with life transitions, career dysphoria, relationship difficulties, and anxiety. I offer compassion, empathy, and life experience. I ask questions, listen and offer skills training. I meet my clients where they are and do not formulate preconceived ideas or strategies to help my clients, rather, I seek to understand their view point, life experiences, and cultural influences into their therapy goals.
The first session is spent gathering current mental status, family history, a risk assessment, trauma history, social history, cultural factors, developmental history, previous therapy, spiritual practices, substance use, legal history, educational history, medical history including medications currently used, and history of the presenting problem.
Empathic interaction, history of providing mental health care, careful listening, interactive dialogue, curiosity, cultural competency, life experience, and compassion.
Clients feeling "stuck". Thinking errors such as black and white thinking, discounting the positive, catastrophizing, , overgeneralization, all or nothing thinking, self blame, and emotional reasoning. ADHD challenges, grief, life transitions, and end of life experiences.
I am a proponent of the strengths philosophy which emphasizes drawing on client's inherent abilities and strengths to overcome challenges and obstacles while also learning new coping strategies. I incorporate psycho-education, role play, interactive feedback, supportive reflection, cognitive challenging, cognitive framing, and cognitive reframing.