Licensed to practice in Georgia and accepts 15 insurances. Specializes in Anxiety, Depression, Trauma and PTSD and 3 more.
New to Grow
I am here because I want to help. I consider both my personal and professional life experience as invaluable in working with others. I believe people are "hard-wired" to live with authenticity and become the best version of themselves and I would enjoy helping you with that process. I have deep compassion for the human condition and it fuels my desire to help. Helping others let go of what interferes with life satisfaction, helping their authentic self thrive and live their best life is rewarding. I do not see people as broken, rather as being heroic in navigating life challenges with sometimes inadequate skills and patterns that arose out of their unique personal life story. I embrace the concept that we are on earth to have an opportunity to enjoy the incredible experiences life can offer and we are also capable of finding ways to reduce or eliminate suffering. By the grace of our creator I have been provided with life and experience to be able to offer my services. I look forward to supporting you with gentle guidance, increased confidence and heart in your journey forward. I would be grateful and honored to work with you.
The therapy relationship is genuinely positive when the client feels comfortable, so I do my best to help that be the case. Good communication, healing and growth can happen in an atmosphere of safety. I like to acknowledge the client's healthy, "courageous heart" that has stepped up to seek therapy. If you have never been in therapy it can stimulate some anxiety which is normal. I look forward to understanding what is currently going on in your life situation, what has been helping you manage life challenges and what has not been helping. I will be curious about what you are seeking from therapy. I will briefly go over how I work. I routinely offer strategies and/or techniques that can help the client better self-regulate immediately. A successful counseling collaboration can happen when there is a "goodness of fit" between client and therapist, so I'm looking forward to connecting with you.
Throughout my life I have, and continue to learn about resilience and adaptibility and share that with clients. I support client resilience and adaptibility and help them recognize their strengths. Helping you understand how your unique nervous system influences mental health is central to my work and can provide immediate benefits through regular self-regulation practices. Body-informed understandings and practices are so helpful to healing and balance. Being able to self-regulate well contributes to more satisfying and positive relationships which are so important to a sense of well-being and peace. Recognizing how we naturally seek connection with others is supportive to well-being and communicating that concept is one of my strengths . I consider my authenticity as being a strength. I am skilled in identifying unhelpful patterns of thinking and finding ways to help you live more at peace in the present. I'm well practiced in helping clients notice what is going well, in-spite of current difficulties, to be able to reflect on and appreciate the grace in their lives, and to even more fully appreciate the benefits of a gratitude practice.
I am experienced in helping those suffering with anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship problems, life transitions (ie., divorce, retirement, death). Trauma could have childhood origins or later life experiences, ie., infidelity, job/career, military experience, automobile accident, surgery, medical illness, family member death, and seeking relief from trauma symptoms. I find great satisfaction in assisting the client in realizing they are not "broken" and that a return to a sense of balance can happen. It is gratifying to work with client's who can be receptive to understanding the wisdom of their body(soma) and nervous system and how those play a primary role in self-regulation which contributes to overall well-being, healing and satisfying relationships. I appreciate the client who understands that the quality and nature of their relationships are core to overall life satisfaction, and central to the sense of a life being well-lived. And, in our work together, efforting to help you have an even more positive and satisfying relationship with yourself will be primary.
Understanding how thoughts can affect feelings and how behaviors can change as a result of a feeling helps you have an increased sense that things can change. Helping you make even just small changes to thinking and behaviors can make a positive difference. Helping the client understand that self-talk may contain distorted or simply incorrect thoughts can be liberating. Noticing destructive core beliefs or unhelpful conditioned thoughts is helpful in managing those thoughts that influence our life and relationships. When a client becomes present to their thoughts they can challenge them for example, adjust their thinking, and become more connected to who they authentically are.
Having been trained in body informed practices I find them tremendously valuable in helping people get better at self-regulating anxiety for example. Becoming more aware of changes in body sensations and the nervous system contributes to better self-regulation which strengthens a sense of well-being, and this can even help with better sleep. Self-regulation of the nervous system can help decrease stress. I will help you learn how better nervous system self-regulation can improve communication patterns, help problematic relationships and enhance comfort in relationships. Somatic techniques include facial self-massage and connecting with nature during walks.
Mindfulness practices are wonderful in helping the client be more fully present in their life. Mindfulness practices assist clients in noticing unhelpful thoughts and behaviors that are problematic or even destructive. Mindfulness practices assist in noticing physical sensations and nervous system signals useful in strengthening your ability to better self-regulate. Mindfulness practices include breathing techniques, meditative awareness and focus on body sensations. Mindfulness can include noticing our spiritual self, considering our life source- this is a very personal area of which I am very respectful.
This approach can be helpful for example as a client looks back at childhood, talks about the past and seeing how it may be affecting their current life situations-better understanding of the relationship between past experience and present patterns is usually helpful. With therapy providing a safe space a client can talk about whatever comes up, whether it be in the past, present or the future. Through awareness and understanding of your past and how it has contributed to shaping you it can contribute, for example, to calling up the part of you committed to having better relationships, improving your self-concept or better manage mental health challenges.