I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I have been counseling clients dealing with a variety of mental, emotional, and relational issues for over 16 years. I have counseled adolescents, adults, families, couples and groups. I decided to pursue a doctorate in Marriage and Family Therapy because I realized the impact that our families, and society as well, have on our mental and emotional development. The impacts of these are both positive and negative and may manifest as depression, anxiety, grief, low self-esteem, a lack of a sense of self and other mental and emotional disorders. In counseling, I help clients explore those influences and the impact on their life. My specialties then center around helping clients gain insight into those influences, become more empowered, develop a stronger sense of self, and take steps to become who they really are; thereby addressing mental and emotional health issues. It's important to note that many times, experiences unfortunately include trauma and loss. It may be childhood or other trauma. Identifying, acknowledging and processing trauma and loss is therefore often a part of the process of becoming more empowered and developing that strong sense of self described above. .
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
In the first session, clients can expect to review their goals for counseling and to be asked questions to clarify and ascertain reasons for coming to counseling at this particular time. Contributing or significant factors, individuals, and experiences may be identified. These steps help clients as well as the therapist to gain clarity. If time and the situation permit or requires, assessments may be administered and/or reviewed. If indicated, options for higher level of treatment will be explored.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
My primary specialty is helping clients to accept the reality of their lives, relationships, thoughts, feelings, etc., to increase their sense of self or to become who they really are. This will help them become more empowered, hence hopefully minimizing or eliminating negative mental and emotional health issues. Getting through these processes entails a review of their family history, acknowledging/identifying trauma, grief or loss in their life;, acknowledging the impact of significant others, situations, and circumstances; being honest with themselves and a number of other factors. Those are very difficult issues to address and work through. My specialty is being with clients to facilitate this process.
Describe the client(s) you are best positioned to serve.
Clients who are inquisitive and open to learning. I am best positioned to serve clients who are receptive to the idea of examining their thoughts, emotions and behaviors, are willing to be honest about what they're thinking and feeling (realizing that sometimes that's unclear to individuals, but they're willing vs resistant). Even if resistant, however, I'm receptive to working with clients to help them work through what may be leading to the resistance.
About Dr. Gail West
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VirtualMy treatment methods
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
CBT is a fundamental modality that is used with most clients. It is often combined with other modalities for a more comprehensive and integrative approach. Using CBT, I help clients understand the connections between thoughts, emotions and behaviors. It is explained that it is important to identify irrational and distorted thinking and to learn to restructure or reframe those thoughts to lead to positive emotions and healthy behaviors. It also helps to enhance emotional regulation and gain clarity. With those enhanced skills, the client's problem-solving, coping, boundary-setting, decision-making and communications may all improve. These are all a part of CBT.
Psychodynamic
I've used psychodynamic treatment method since I've been doing counseling (18 years). The main purposes are to facilitate client gaining insight into those factors, such as historical conflicts and adverse childhood experiences, that are contributing to current thoughts, emotions and behaviors. We also identify and work through defense mechanisms they're employing which also may emanate from those experiences, exploring underlying thoughts and emotions/anxieties thereby gaining more insight into their personality. Combined with CBT, irrational thoughts (often rooted in historical experiences) are explored and we work on restructuring and reframing those.
Family Therapy
This is regarding 'Family Systems' vs Family Therapy but Family Systems is not listed. The point here is incorporate family systems concepts into individual sessions to help clients. For example, one main tenet of Bowenian Family Therapy is Differentiation of Self. This is often a main goal in my counseling individuals; i.e., increasing their sense of self. The goal is to help them to know who they are - to define themselves rather than living life on autopilot and being who others (including their families of origin, society, communities or other entities) say they are. Concepts described under CBT and psychodynamic are also applied here. Increasing boundary-setting skills, communications, decision-making and problem-solving skills are an integral part of accomplishing this goal. The better they get at setting boundaries, the more they're defining themselves and the more they define themselves, the better they'll get at setting boundaries. Enhancing the sense of self will therefore ultimately help to decrease mental health diagnoses such as depression and anxiety. Adaptive behaviors, relationships, values, beliefs, fears, anxieties, among other concepts are explored in trying to help increase their sense of self. Trying to accomplish this goal can be extremely anxiety-provoking for clients but will lead to enhanced and more stable emotions and mental health when accomplished.