Licensed to practice in Connecticut and accepts 9 insurances. Specializes in Spirituality, School Issues, Life Transitions and 10 more.
(he/him)
New to Grow
With nearly 20 years of experience in various settings, including school, faith-based organizations, athletics, and clinical contexts, I'm dedicated to helping adolescents and adults find growth and healing. I specialize in working with middle, high school, and college students facing challenges such as anxiety, depression, life transitions, spiritual confusion, and behavioral issues. Having been a Division 1 collegiate athlete, specifically in Big East soccer, I understand the unique stressors faced by student-athletes.
First, I acknowledge the courage it takes to embark on the journey of personal growth. As a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW), my role is to create a safe and liberating space where you can freely explore your feelings and concerns. I’ve learned that therapy is most effective when it is collaborative. I'm not here to treat an illness or simply fix something broken; instead, I aim to be a compassionate listener, helping you uncover your strengths, accept your limitations, and imagine a path towards a brighter future. During our first few sessions, we will focus on building a mutual sense of trust and connection which will be foundational for the therapeutic journey. In these sessions, we can discuss your expectations and concerns about how therapy works and how we might work together towards your goals.
I am the child of immigrants having moved to the U.S.A. with my parents from Venezuela at the age of four. I have a multicultural, multi-religious upbringing - core identities that form my worldview and inform how I navigate the therapeutic relationship with my clients. I believe that the wisdom you seek lies within you and that my primary role is - through open-ended curiosity and observational conversation - to help you identify your inner healing and strength to take the next step and the one after that on your growth journey.
I've spent the majority of my professional career supporting positive development in adolescents including college-age students and young professionals. Gradually and organically, that focus has expanded to include the people closest to these adolescents: their caretakers. I have seen the most progress with clients who come to sessions with a degree of self-motivation and curiosity even if they are apprehensive about or completely new to therapy. If a client wants to engage in low-pressure, relational, and conversational therapy where they will engage with my questions and prompts as well as bring their own questions and prompts for me, we will be a good fit to work together on their therapy journey.
Other specialties
I identify as
Attachment-based
In my work with youth and adolescents, I often provide parenting support to parents. My parenting guidance, informed by attachment theory, is aimed at strengthening connection between caretakers and the child.
Christian Counseling
For my clients who request an explicitly Christian bent to therapy including the study of the Biblical text with direct application, listening for the voice of the Divine, and developing an increased openness to the leading of the Spirit. My extensive experience as a youth pastor informs this approach.
Culturally Sensitive Therapy
My multicultural, mutli-religious upbringing informs my commitment to honoring the ethnic and cultural identities and stories represented in the client. These often provide a lot of context in understanding whatever we're talking about in sessions.
Faith based therapy
While my experience as a youth pastor is in a primarily evangelical context, my own personal journey of deconstruction and reconstruction informs my approach for any clients who desire to make their faith central to the therapy session (or to work through any faith-related trauma).
Family Therapy
Especially working with youth and adolescents, I will always be asking the question, "How is your family of origin impacting you today?" and "How might we involve their perspective in therapy?" all so that any progress we make in therapy sessions doesn't "go out the window" when the child/student goes back home.