New to Grow
Hello! I am motivated and excited to walk through this season in your life and to assist you in a way that finds you as comfortable and at ease as you can be. I am solution-focused and have a warm teaching style yet lean in closely to the strategies and skills you may be seeking so that your goals are achieved. I have been a therapist for close to twenty years and have competency, education and experience necessary to accept a variety of cases with varying degrees of complexity. I am described by many to be warm, empathetic and at times share guidance that may be challenging to hear and with all intent it would be to see a different point of view for the greater good.
I have seen in my five years as a virtual therapist the first session is what I call a meet and greet. In many ways, it is an informal chat where we get to know one another and a time to see if we could be a possible good fit. My chief focus are clients struggling with depression, anxiety and relationship and family issues. I help clients learn skills and tools to manage their emotions more effectively.
Welcome to therapy! My greatest hope is that in our time together you feel safe, warmly accepted and comfortable to share exactly who you are, any part of your past you feel may be relevant and we can go slow. I think meeting a therapist can be anxiety-provoking and in the first session it takes a lot of courage to make that first telephone call. That is already a sign that you want to learn additional tools, skills and strategies to perhaps cope with life better, find more inner-peace or perhaps a way to regulate your emotions more effectively.
I have tended to be well-suited with the 20's and 30's age range and in saying that we discuss academic goals, career goals, identity issues, financial management, housing struggles, unemployment and relationship conflicts. How this plays out is I assist my clients in formulating treatment goals that focus on navigating adulthood with increased confidence which typically begins with strengthening their view of self in a world that is perceived as daunting and "high anxiety" is a clinical presentation I hear often. No doubt this journey with this population is treading on fragile ground as many describe their childhoods as technology-driven, the absence of social skills and absent parents whom were not in touch with their emotions. Lastly, many process their feelings of grief and loss due to COVID-19 and the milestones missed.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-i)
I utilize both cognitive behavioral therapy as a way to lean in and teach skills and strategies with a warm approach. In doing this, our goal is to find results that are tangible and show up in your daily lives as both impactful and practical so that you are internalizing a sense of calm and peace. I have a warm teaching style and presence and strive to lean in closely so that we may achieve your therapy goals to increase insight and more importantly learn how to regulate emotions more effectively. yet lean in closely to the strategies and skills you may be seeking so that your goals are achieved. I relay heavily initially on symptoms management once you arrive such as high anxiety, severe depression or any incidents/ crises you may bring in and from there and together we can process these events and find ways to calm down the difficult emotions. Many clients over the 20 years I have done this work I find people arrive to therapy with these three things in common: increased self- esteem, low confidence and emotional regulation. Its time to build skills together and press on the gas to find ways in your life that you experience more joy and peace than is going on right now! Kindly, Victoria
Attachment-based
Attachment injury has become widely recognized and many know they are either anxious, avoidant and certainly in our work together we aim for a secure attachment style. We can only hope! In striving for your best outcome that begins with learning about you and the story about your life. From my point of you it has been my experience noted that when you decide to tackle your past of some of the worst days of your life you may be on a journey to toward some of the best days optimistically speaking. There is no guarantee of a certain kind of outcome as mental health is defined so differently but in our work together I want to learn how it is defined by you and our alignment is instinctively been researched as a key factor in best medical outcome. It is important that you feel in our video sessions a sense of compassion, kindness and empathy and that is when you know you have found your best fit!
Gestalt
Relying on research, I have read and experienced over the years the powerful impact that the therapeutic alliance has on the best outcome of treatment goals being achieved. Naturally defined it is defined as I can describe it in a few words now. I have five tenets that I rely on each day such as integrity, kindness, trust, commitment and loyalty. I find there is quite a bit of chemistry over the years when clients meet me and we tend to have that fit necessary and then proceed toward therapy goals with ease.