LPC, 22 years of experience
Hi! I'm a Licensed Professional Counsellor (LPC) in Arizona and Virginia. I am also a Licensed Substance Abuse Treatment Practitioner in Virginia. I received my Masters in Counseling from Liberty University and have been practicing for 22 years. I help adults struggling with issues such as anxiety, depression, grief/loss, trauma, and chemical dependency and love to help people find positive solutions for improving mental health.
In our first session together, we'll start with brief introductions, complete a biopsychosocial history and then focus on the specific challenges you're facing. I like to involve my clients in identifying appropriate treatment goals and objectives specifically designed to accomplishing desired outcomes for treatment, which we work to identify during the initial intake session. I also like to discuss any concerns that clients may have about what to expect throughout treatment and answer any questions they may have.
Having worked with individuals for the past 22 years, I'm experienced in helping people identify and verbalize challenges they are facing. I am then able to help them identify specific strategies for identifying the root cause of challenges and create a unique plan for coping with those challenges that leads to measurable progress.
I love working with older children, adolescents and adults to establish and achieve their goals for improving their mental health. My clients are eager to improve, but don't yet have the tools needed to make this goal a reality. They may often feel stuck and just need some assistance to help identify and learn new ways of coping with often challenging situations by identifying new, more effective coping mechanisms to help manage stressors.
CBT is a method used to help people identify and cope with challenges they are facing, whether it is everyday stress, a specific stressor in their lives, or trauma. I work with clients who may be experiencing irrational or distressing thoughts/emotions and help them identify positive coping skills, expand support systems, replace negative thoughts and/or behaviors to help them better manage and decrease their symptoms.
This is a client-centered approach to counseling designed for helping people find motivation to make positive behavioral changes and empowers them to take charge of their recovery. This involves forming a collaborative partnership with my clients to build rapport and a trusting relationship in order to be able to discuss often difficult issues. This helps enable clients to better understand their desire for change, identify any ambivalence about those changes and ultimately to decide how or if they want to make changes or what changes to actually make as they seek to improve their mental health.