My Services
01.
Therapy for Anxiety and Depression
It is not uncommon for people with depression to experience anxiety, along with symptoms such as nervousness, irritability, and trouble sleeping. Likewise, people with anxiety often become depressed and experience low energy or loss of interest in life. People suffering from anxiety and/or depression can have a broad range of experiences that may fluctuate from difficult episodes to periods of relief. Just as there are many different experiences of anxiety and depression, there are a variety of options for helping people make changes to their life and learn and practice coping techniques to manage and reduce symptoms. This can include cognitive-behavior therapy approaches, mindfulness and relaxation techniques, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), emotional and behavioral regulation techniques, experiential techniques, response prevention techniques, and crisis/safety planning. Untreated, anxiety and depression can worsen and/or repeat it's patterns over and over again, interfering with one's life and causing ongoing physical and emotional problems. Suicide as a result of anxiety and depression is significantly increasing, especially among children, adolescents and LGBTQ individuals.
02.
Play therapy is a form of therapy found to be effective with children. Play therapy uses play activities to help children communicate and explore thoughts and emotions, address life events that may have an effect on them, address unresolved trauma, and experience personal growth. Play therapy can be used with children and adolescents who are experiencing a variety of issues.
Theraplay is a form of play therapy used primarily with fostered or adopted children who have behavioral difficulties that include disobedience and a perceived lack of affection for their caregivers. The children's problems come about from a difficulty in attaching to their new caregivers due to lack of trust and anger brought about by past abuse, neglect and/or abandonment.
03.
The goal of cognitive therapy is to help one recognize and identify maladaptive thinking patterns that are contributing to feelings of anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and anger. These maladaptive thinking patterns result in unhealthy choices which reinforce and perpetuate the maladaptive thinking. Helping someone recognize these patterns and change or replace them with healthier, more adaptive ones can result in a significant improvement in one's health and life.
The goal of behavior therapy is to identify maladaptive behaviors and change or replace them with behaviors that bring about better outcomes. Some behavior problems are due to life such as divorce, a death in the family, or birth of a sibling. Other problems with behavior choices are longer term. These can be a result of ADHD or other mental health issues or learned patterns of behavior that are ineffective and harmful.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy combines both of these approaches to help children, adolescents, and adults who are dealing with a variety of issues.
04.
Pre-Divorce Therapy-- Therapy before a divorce can help both parties learn to communicate more effectively during the process. If there are children in the family, a civil, healthy divorce is imperative for the well-being of all family members and will minimize the trauma of divorce for the children. Therapy can assist with parenting issues related to divorce such as how to best tell your children about the impending divorce and how to create a co-parenting plan. Therapy can also prepare you for some of the feelings and emotions you may have throughout the divorce process and teach you coping strategies that you can apply when you have trouble over the coming months.
Post-Divorce Therapy-- No matter the reason, the break-up of a long-term relationship can disrupt your world and trigger profound emotions such as sadness, anger, stress and grief. Therapy post-divorce allows you a safe place to talk through your feelings rather than keeping the pain inside. It can help guide you through the confusion and grief over the loss of the relationship, the companionship, the support and the plans you had together. Therapy can also help you maintain a civil co-parenting pln when there are children involved. This is imperative for the well-being of all involved.
Kids and Divorce--Although divorce is not easy on kids, it does not have to cause trauma or long-term problems for them. Therapy can help children and adolescents process their grief and address their misperceptions about the divorce in a way that helps them move forward and have healthy relationships with, both, their parents.
05.
Emotional and psychological trauma is the result of extraordinarily stressful events that shatter your sense of security, making you feel helpless in a dangerous world. Traumatic experiences often involve a threat to life or safety, but any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and isolated can be traumatic, even if it does not involve physical harm. It is not the objective facts that determine whether an event is traumatic, but your subjective experience of the event. Trauma can leave you struggling with upsetting emotions, memories, and anxiety that will not go away. It can also leave you feeling numb, disconnected, and unable to trust other people. In children, trauma can lead to significant behavior changes and problems. Therapy with a professional trained in dealing with abuse and trauma utilizes many different therapy strategies and approaches and is important to help a person recover, heal and move on with his/her life. This can include Internal Family Systems Work, EMDR, Trauma-Focused Therapy, Stabilization/Grounding, Mindfulness Stress Reduction Therapy, Somatic/Body work, Narrative work, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy, Exposure Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. If you are ready to make a change and get help, please call.
06.
Couples Therapy and Family Therapy
All relationships have their ups and downs. Couples Therapy is aimed at helping couples learn and practice healthy communication skills and change behavior and interactive pattern that are contributing to stress in the relationship.
Just like couples, families get caught in communication and interactive patterns that are problematic and contribute to conflict and stress. Family Therapy helps families identify ways each family member can change the way he/she perceives and responds to the other family members. Small changes can add up to big results and happier/healthier families.