LP, 28 years of experience
By engaging in therapy you’ll experience growth toward living your life free of intrusive thinking. I’m Susan Shipley, a clinical psychologist and I work with kids and adults. You can expect that I will respect your unique experiences and goals. Expect compassionate counseling, keen observation and solutions to challenges blocking from living your life fully. We will develop solutions that fit the situation through collaboration. You’ll move on from baffling situations, negative relationships, and often use ineffective coping. You’ll learn to use therapy tools to overcome the thing holding you back from experiencing life to the fullest. My clients often have challenges such as anxiety, depression, and grief. I've experiences working with people bothered by anxiety, anorexia, phobias, panic attacks, OCD behavior, and intrusive thoughts. Addiction and recovery are areas of my expertise. I'm a school psychologist who knows about learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, developmental delays, affect of education. Occasionally life challenges meet us at a particularly vulnerable time, and I work with people to adjust to life’s changes: grief, job loss, and alcohol and drug dependents and their family. I'm an artist and a trained art therapist. I found, art making often speaks with more feeling and force than words alone. We will incorporate art if you choose. CBT works in a collaborative manner between the therapist and the client. Together, we can identify what's not working and get you back to balance. We'll use a whole self-approach, addressing your needs. I also integrate mindfulness, yoga, and art to help you develop a stronger relationship with others and most importantly yourself. You have found a safe space to heal and grow. In our sessions together, I'll meet you with compassion and evidence-based techniques so you can overcome the hangups and habits holding you back. Let's work together!
Your first session we will get to know one another and talk about anything that concerns you. It is also an important time to see if we make a good team. During the course of therapy we become a team working to find the best solutions to your concerns and those problems you’ve encountered. When you present your concern at the initial meeting, we begin to address feelings, thoughts and/or behavior that have been bothering you. Because therapy is most effective when it’s collaborative, it is important that we should fit well together as a team.
As the adult client, you lead the initial discussion. I listen to your concern and together we work through any hang-ups, ineffective coping or habits, distressing thought patterns, feelings of loss or helplessness. Through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and the tools of Dialectic Behavior therapy, you can experience growth, gain strength , resilience, calm, and unleash your creativity. It’s important to gain the confidence to feel loved and the knowledge you belong. This type of therapy is a place where your empowerment is goal.
I have earned a Ph.D in clinical psychology license, which demonstrate my therapy credentials, employ high standards and adhere to a strict ethical code of practice. I am committed to help you achieve your dreams through therapy. I work with people struggling with job loss, assist parents with children, help those with blocked creativity, assist people navigate through grief and loss. Together we will work overcoming obsessive-compulsive tendencies, guide people to get over dependence on others or things such as addictions. Together we can address your eating disorders, fears and phobias. I’ve help many reach success when caught in the grips of alcohol, drugs, gambling, codependence. Often my therapy orientation helps people deal with depression and anxiety that stem from trauma, relationship problems and those dealing with negative intrusive thoughts. I work well with clients unafraid to be challenged, if needed. Clients can expect empathy, insight and understanding in our therapeutic relationship.
Like cognitive behavioral therapy, DBT also focuses on thoughts, behaviors and feelings through the dialogue between client and therapist. The word dialectic means alternatives thoughts and proofs that the negative intrusive thought is not true, but a remnant of childhood. The dialectic alternative thought can be the opposite way of thinking to the negative thought and a means of chipping away at the power such intrusive thoughts can hold. For instance when a reoccurring troubling thought seems to continually intrude on your life, you’ll learn how to address it with the tools of DBT.
When life gets chaotic and unmanageable we will work through your concerns and seek out possible solutions to those unmanageable problems. Often it is an accessible solution.
Both CBT and DBT have proven effective at reducing the compulsions and depressive thoughts associated with addiction.
Mindfulness is a core practice in DBT and this effective strategy has been proven effective with eating disorders anorexia and bulimia.
Play therapy in my practice is art therapy . The client with the therapist analysis their art product, the process of doing the art and often communicate through the art like play expression. Having worked many years with children in school settings, I have unique insight in learning differences and achievement expectations.
1 rating with written reviews
February 5, 2025
Very understanding and easy to talk to.