LMHC, 15 years of experience
Frequently rebooked
Hi, I truly enjoy working with adolescents, young adults, and adults throughout the life span. I enjoy working with individuals who wish to bring some balance and peace to their lives and to reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, ADHD, social anxiety, school phobia, and other issues affecting their daily lives. My goal is to work towards helping you understand yourself better to experience improvement in your daily life. Let's build a plan together to make this change a reality. I enjoy working with clients who want to make school, vocational, career, life, or family transitions but are scared to do so. I want to help you cope with the sometimes harsh and intense stressors of daily life, and help bring a sense of calm, control, confidence, happiness, and most of all balance back to your daily life.
In our first session together, we'll start with brief introductions, I will share a little bit about myself, and then I will ask you to share about the specific challenges you are currently facing. This will help me create a tailored short-term therapy plan for us to work through in subsequent sessions.
I feel that one of my greatest strengths is that I am a patient, kind, active. authentic and empathic listener. I give my clients the opportunity to openly share their thoughts and feelings in a safe space. I also believe in open feedback and ask my clients to share what is working best for them to make this experience as effective as possible. I try to utilize humor and other positive strategies to bring some light in. I will share strategies to practice homework in between sessions. Also, may share some things to read more about in between sessions.
I am fully bilingual in Spanish and understand cultural differences within the Latin community. I enjoy working with students of all ages who have ADD/ADHD, general/ social anxiety, depression, school phobia, loneliness, or friendship issues. In addition, I truly enjoy working with women who are in life or career transitions (changes in marital status, medical issues, menopause, etc.)
I use Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as a form of psychological treatment for a range of problems including depression, anxiety disorders, marital problems, eating disorders, and severe mental illness. Numerous research studies suggest that CBT significantly improves functioning and quality of life. In many studies, CBT has been demonstrated to be as effective as, or more effective than, other forms of psychological therapy or psychiatric medications.
Culturally sensitive therapy is extremely important to me as a therapist. It is an approach to psychotherapy that emphasizes the therapist's understanding of a client’s background and belief system as it relates to their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, or other important elements that makeup someone’s culture and/or identity. Therapists can incorporate cultural sensitivity into their work to accommodate and respect differences in the opinions, values, and attitudes of various cultures.Cultural sensitivity allows a therapist to gain and maintain cultural competence, which is the ability to first recognize and understand one’s own culture and how it influences one's relationship with a client, then understand and respond to a culture that is different from one’s own. The need for this understanding may be based on characteristics such as age, beliefs, ethnicity, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status.
I have been practicing mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) for over 15 years and find that it is a very effective tool to help clients who are struggling with emotional regulation or mood disorders such as anxiety and/or depression.
I enjoy utilizing techniques from a positive psychology frame of reference, which allows a client to focus on building positive behavioral skills and less of a focus on the disease model of therapeutic intervention. It is a growth mindset intervention model.
Empowering clients to take ownership of their lives is important to me. Utilizing a psychoeducational approach as a therapeutic intervention whereby the therapist provides the client with information about their diagnosis, symptoms, or the method of treatment used. This is often provided in the form of short reading materials or videos to watch and discuss in subsequent sessions.
2 ratings with written reviews
July 23, 2025
Susi is an amazing provider, always listens very intentionally, and provides helpful feedback! I look forward to every session I have with her, and feel extremely open and comfortable sharing intimate details of my personal life. If you get the chance to book a session with her, definitely do it!
May 17, 2025
Susi has helped me through my issues and situations with new clarity