Phil Pollock
Hello! My name is Phil Pollock, LCSW-C. I have worked with clients virtually and in-person, at multiple levels of care, to treat depression, anxiety, bipolar, PTSD, grief and loss, and other mental health challenges. I have a strong track record of helping people achieve their therapeutic goals by affirming their strengths, seeking to understand their unique personality and history, and encouraging them to make practical changes in line with their values. I have also helped couples and families work through difficulties in relationships using the same affirming, positive approach.
First session
Our first session will be primarily focused on getting to know you and beginning to understand your goals for therapy. We will also talk through some other practical things regarding expectations for our work together moving forward, confidentiality and mandated reporting requirements, and addressing any questions that you have about the therapeutic process. Goal setting is a dynamic, client-led process that will start in the first few sessions. You have specific reasons why you are here, and specific ideas as to what you want to accomplish in therapy. Establishing and maintaining a mutual understanding of your goals and their underlying motivations is an essential component of good therapy. Maintaining motivation can be challenging in therapy, and doing what we can to assess and appreciate the progress you are making toward your goals throughout can be incredibly helpful in staying motivated to continue building on that progress. Goals may change as your circumstances change. Your understanding of your own challenges may change. That's ok! You may also want to implement new goals after initial goals have been achieved. That's ok too! They are your goals, and my job in this process is to understand and help you to work towards them. The ultimate goal of any therapeutic relationship is that we can eventually part ways with you feeling like you were able to achieve what you most wanted to accomplish through therapy.
Strengths
I seek to co-create a therapeutic context in which you feel understood and encouraged. Your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors make sense in the context of your unique experience of the world. In the course of working together, I will seek to gain a better understanding of your unique personality and history so that I can more effectively validate how you naturally react in various contexts. This isn't to say that all of your feelings, behaviors, and thoughts are necessarily justified, or helpful, or even true, just that they make sense in context if we take the time to fully understand that context. You can and should feel encouraged to challenge thoughts that are not true, change behaviors that are unhelpful, and foster greater compassion and understanding toward your own emotional experience. As your therapist, I will work with you to identify and learn to use your unique strengths towards your own healing and overall well-being so that you can achieve greater self-worth, healthier relationships, and feel more capable of acting in accordance with your values.
Ideal clients
I am most comfortable working with people who are experiencing depression, anxiety, bipolar, PTSD, grief and loss, and other related mental health challenges in individual therapy. I also have a significant amount of experience working with couples and families to work through difficulties in relationships. I work at an in-person facility that offers partial hospitalization (PHP) and intensive outpatient program (IOP) services to people navigating through acute symptoms associated with all of the above listed challenges, providing individual, group, and family therapy sessions. I also spent three years working at an outpatient mental health clinic in Baltimore, MD, providing remote and in-person services. I am confident that my years of experience providing telehealth services will help me to ensure that you are able to receive effective, high-quality therapy remotely. I am a big believer in using objective measures to provide tangible evidence of progress of symptom management. I have helped people set and achieve goals to more effectively manage their depression, anxiety, stress, and PTSD symptoms. Progress toward and achievement of these goals were affirmed by objective measures.
Treatment methods
Strength-Based
As a licensed clinical social worker, I always lead with a strengths-based approach in my work with people. I don’t believe the challenges bringing you into therapy are the most fundamental part of who you are. You are so much more than the challenges you face. Gaining an appreciation for your unique strengths, gifts, and talents, and working with you to leverage those towards your own healing and overall wellbeing is at the core of what I try to do as a therapist.
Trauma-Informed Care
I am also deeply trauma-informed and compassion-focused. I have participated in numerous courses and workshops from Bessel van der Kolk and other leaders in the field to better understand how human beings respond to trauma, and how we can most effectively work towards healing. I believe everyone carries the imprints of some level of past trauma with them, whether or not they meet the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, and that everyone's thoughts, emotions, and behaviors make sense if you understand the full context in which that person is operating. We all experience moments when our mental models of the world get fractured or broken. Those moments stay with us. Developing a deeper sense of peace and safety in our own bodies is important in effectively managing anxiety and PTSD symptoms.
Compassion-Focused
Engaging in deep self-compassion work can allow us to work towards healing and addressing the root causes of trauma-related symptoms. Many of us experience deeply unhelpful and even malicious self-talk, and self-compassion is key in working towards re-writing that internal narrative.
Mindfulness-Based Therapy
I also incorporate concepts and exercises from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Internal Family Systems Therapy, and attachment-based therapy. Incorporating some basic mindfulness principles can be a helpful way to observe thoughts and emotions without feeling overwhelmed. All these approaches can inform deeper therapeutic work in different ways.
Couples Counseling
When working with couples and families, I use many of the same concepts that have proven helpful in my work with individuals, with an extra emphasis on validation of self and loved ones, establishing shared goals, and practicing gratitude. When you are grateful for the positive aspects of a relationship, you’re motivated to work at it to make it better.
Location
Virtual sessions