I am a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and a Master Certified Addiction Professional. I connect with my clients by listening to and exploring each person’s unique situation completely free from judgment. Throughout my career, I have provided counseling to individuals, couples, and families struggling with substance abuse issues, relationship difficulties, sexual identity issues, infidelity, cyber infidelity, gaming addiction, electronics addiction, internet addiction, depression, anxiety, life transitions, communication skills, assertiveness training, self-esteem, confidence building, conflict resolution, parenting, career and life transitions, and family changes including divorce and death. I help my clients work through their challenges to make the positive changes they are looking for so they can live their best life.
I will always strive to bring forth my clients’ strengths, increase their self-awareness and empower them to better make decisions that will positively shape their lives. I explore helpful ways of relating to challenges and offer constructive ways of dealing with them. I discuss possibilities for preferred ways of living with my clients to promote their continued success as they transition from struggling with their situation to soaring in their new life.
My approach is collaborative whereby my client and I are a team creating a road map together to assist them in achieving their goals for therapy. I do not believe I am the expert in my clients' lives but rather just an observer with a different perspective. That alternative perspective allows me to assist my clients in identifying alternative solutions to their current situations that they may not be able to recognize. I am not better than my clients I am just able to see things they may not be able to see based on their position within the interactional pattern of the problem they are experiencing. I treat each client as the unique individual they are and work hard to understand their worldview, how they relate to their current issues and what they would like their future to look like.
My biggest strengths are working with couples and individuals in an open non-judgmental way helping them achieve their goals. My pre-therapist experience helps me work with clients on life work challenges, and my history as the clinical director of multiple treatment centers helps me work with individuals, couples, and families struggling with addiction. I am able to see multiple perspectives and assist in helping each individual with what they might need the most while supporting others' viewpoints throughout the therapeutic process. I utilize a multitude of different therapeutic techniques with clients until I find what works best for them. I call it “playing in multiple sandboxes” because everyone will respond differently to different therapeutic techniques.