Amanda Pisark
Welcome! I provide a safe space for those who are experiencing negative thoughts and feelings that impact their daily lives as well as their relationships with partners, family, friends, colleagues, and peers. After years of working as a social worker in hospice care and retirement communities, I have developed a passion for working with adults of all ages understand their internal and external responses to a variety of factors including life transitions, loss of loved ones, caregiver stress, family conflict, and unprocessed trauma. I also specialize in hoarding disorder; providing psychoeducation on its causes and largely misunderstood symptoms, helping those who are directly affected by it learn to manage their behaviors, and counseling those who are indirectly affected by it learn how to cope with its impact.
First session
We will have a discussion to understand why you are seeking therapy and what your hopes and expectations are. This will help us navigate your short-term and long-term goals, and will naturally lay out the foundation for our therapeutic relationship.
Strengths
During our sessions, I will encourage you to guide our conversations while I occasionally interject with questions and observations, not only to gain additional insight on both our parts, but also to help you consider your experiences from different perspectives which can often lead to better understanding of yourself and your environment, and be steps towards your goals. Over time, I will work with you to develop coping techniques and personalized tools that can provide relief for the issues that are weighing down on you. I will occasionally assign exercises that you can incorporate into your routine until we reconnect which can help you become more attuned with yourself and those around you in different ways than before your therapy journey. Therapy can be daunting for many individuals; this is completely normal and understandable, and we will work towards your goals at a pace that works best for you.
Ideal clients
Whether you're 18 or 81, I work with those who are experiencing changes in their lives or relationships, or are exposed to certain situations that can lead to complex reactions such as grief, anxiety, overwhelm, stress, depression, and compulsive and impulsive behaviors. I look forward to hearing your personal experiences, and helping you understand who you are, who you want to be, and getting you to that place.
Treatment methods
Attachment-based
Our childhood experiences with our parents and other essential caregivers shape the perceptions and actions we develop in adult relationships. Depending on those early relationships, we form an attachment style that is predominantly secure, insecure/anxious, or avoidant, which effects the way we view others and ourselves. Attachment-based therapy focuses on the effects of these early relationships on our ability to achieve healthy adult relationships, as well as their influence on our motivation and personal growth
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
This evidence-based approach uses attachment theory to help individuals, couples, and families identify their underlying relational needs, maladaptive thoughts and feelings, and relational conflicts to work towards repairing those connections.
Couples Counseling
Expanding on EFT, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) takes a deeper dive into couples' individual attachment styles, shifts in their shared and respective environments, personal values, and communication breakdown to better understand each partners' wants and needs. Modifying how we communicate, collaborate, and compromise with each other are just some of the few tools that you will be able to work on together as you enter a new chapter in your partnership.
Acceptance and commitment (ACT)
When thoughts and feelings cannot be altered despite the efforts made through the commonly used cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) model, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) can be incorporated to help you accept your thoughts and emotions as they are while committing to making changes in your behaviors and your life to be closer to the version that you want it to be.
Grief Therapy
Grief is one of the most universal and yet misunderstood human experiences. All people have had someone or something that they have loved and lost and have had to continue on with that hard-to-describe feeling of having and then not having, or being and then not being. Understanding your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors - and identifying them as a response to grief - helps my clients feel ownership of their grief and develop tools that they can use to not necessarily move on *from* grief, but to move on *with* grief.
Location
Virtual sessions
Identifies as
Top specialties
Other specialties
Licensed in
- PennsylvaniaLicense CW026689