Hi there! I'm a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) based in Connecticut. I received my Master's in Social Work from Southern CT State University and have been practicing for 16 years. I help adults struggling with depression, anxiety, stress/burnout, and generally "feeling stuck" change the way they see themselves, others, the world and their future. My approach incorporates concepts from Mindfulness-based and Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) best-practices, helping clients learn skills to enhance self-awareness and create opportunities for change that are values-aligned and sustainable.
In our first session together, we'll start with brief introductions, then dive into the specific challenges you're facing. This will help me create a tailored plan for us to work through in follow-up sessions. We'll also discuss the importance of homework, or what I've come to call "SPiRL" assignments (AKA "Skills Practice in Real Life"). These may include listening to a podcast, watching a TedTalk, reading an article, journaling or use of worksheets in between sessions, which we can review and process at subsequent visits. My goal isn't to fill your toolbox with coping skills, but to help empower you to create new habits in the way you think and show up in the world!
My empathy, clinical intuition, and ability to shift my perspective objectively have served as unique strengths in my career, allowing me to connect with and better understand very personal and unique struggles of my clients regardless of their age, demographics, history, etc. Clients have offered feedback about feeling genuinely understood and being able to shift their own perspective towards intentional actions as a result. By zooming out of our own personal story, can we only begin to see the forest through the trees.
My passion for human connection, natural curiosity for how we think as humans and formal training from The Beck Institute in 2016 have made me skillful as a Cognitive Behavior Therapist. I have extensive experience using CBT in IOP/OP group settings, along with couples and individuals in private practice. In 2021 was recruited by the Yale Depression Research Program as a study therapist for a 3-year clinical trial using CBT with adults diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression who were also receiving an acute series of ketamine treatments. The results for many participants I worked with were nothing short of transformational. Bringing awareness to patterns of unhelpful thinking, deep-rooted "schemas" or beliefs we hold about ourselves, others and the world, and making small adjustments to our daily habits that better-align with our values and aspirations are some of the core concepts you can expect to learn in our sessions. With self-awareness and regular skills-practice over time, you'll be able to notice some of these unhelpful patterns of cognition (thought) and behavior in real-time, diffusing yourself from the emotional turmoil and thereby creating a "choice-point." Herein lies the difference between "reacting" versus "responding" to typically triggering situations, a skill many clients (as well as myself) have described as having a superpower!