Licensed to practice in California and accepts 9 insurances. Specializes in Grief, Trauma and PTSD, Women's Issues and 10 more.
(she/her)
New to Grow
Hello, I’m Debbie and I’m glad you stopped by to meet me. Let me tell you a little bit about myself to help you in your search for a helpful therapy and therapist. Because I enjoy conversations with my clients my therapy style is directive which means I’m actively participating in your healing journey. It also means that it is a "we journey"; working together as a team toward your self-understanding and practical solutions to what concerns you most. In each session, I will offer productive ways to think and to take effective action. I use storytelling to illustrate effective life concepts and principles. I also use informative dialogue to help you use what you are learning in therapy. I wait and listen so I can adapt to what is happening in each session to further your therapeutic goals.
In our first session, I will listen to your story and why you're seeking therapy. This is a conversation so I interact with you to gain understanding, clarity, and identify your goals for therapy. You will also hear from me my assessments based on your information throughout the session so that you have the opportunity to add and correct how I am reading you. This also enables you to get a feel of who I am and my therapeutic style. At the end of our session, I will give you my impressions and initial assessment and treatment plan and you can agree or change it as you need to. I believe that we are not hostages to our past or present traumas and that overcoming the trauma comes from living life in truth, in responsibility, in gratitude, and in serving. My role as a therapist is to help clients align themselves with life’s truth and respond effectively to it and its challenges. I have called my private practice “Wings of Courage…Journey of Truth” because a healthy and effective life is a courageous and truthful one. I bring a straightforward, honest approach to life issues to encourage a strength and a courage that clients can integrate into their lives. Essentially, that is what therapy is: A Journey of Truth.
I’ve always had an interest into the whys of people and their relationships. The first human behavior laboratory for any of us is our families. My beginning journey is no different as my family and extended family was filled with wonderful and not so wonderful dynamics of the human experience that contributed to my development and interest in how we all work and why. My interest led me to college and graduate school at Azusa Pacific College and culminated in the California State license as a Marriage and Family Therapist. In my own life, I seek clarity and practical solutions to life's challenges, therefore, that is also what I help my clients discover and developed. Clients have told me that they appreciate my down-to-earth practical approach because after every session they walk away with the skills needed to apply the concepts and principles we’ve discussed. They have also said that they hear things that are sometimes uncomfortable and very much needed but always delivered with a warmth, understanding, and compassion that helps them to listen to difficult truth.
I enjoy working with an individual that desires to have a guided self-examination toward learning new thought patterns and behaviors leading to the resolution of one's struggles, conflicts, and pain. The concerns vary but issues of anxiety, depression, past and present trauma, relationship conflict, life transitions, loss and grief are some of the one that I have a particular interest in serving. I also am bicultural Hispanic and enjoy working with the Hispanic community. As a Christian therapist I enjoy working with the Christian and church community as well.
I identify as
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
CBT is an approach that combines the thought process and the behavioral process. It seeks to identifies thoughts or beliefs that keep us stuck in behavior and actions that are not effect. CBT then challenges those thought and beliefs by presenting more effective ways of thinking and changes in behavior. Feelings are attended to but not the central focus. Feelings will change and adapt to the more effective thought patterns.
Faith based therapy
Christian faith-based therapy helps the individual to apply Biblical teaching to facing the challenges, problems, and conflicts that life brings. The Christian therapist is professionally clinically trained as well as a proficient teacher in Biblical and Christian thought. This always based on the client request.