My Approach to Helping
Therapy Orientation:
Hi! I am a wholistic, person-centered therapist and coach who believes you have an innate and irrepressible drive towards wholeness. Our work will reach the YOU who has always known that, but has felt held back. For many of us, the process of living authentically is nothing less than a hero's journey, fraught with pain, isolation, uncertainty, disappointment. Keep going! You are not alone. It is often from our woundedness that our greatest gifts and strengths emerge. I am here as a witness to your process awakening, healing, reconnecting, and re-emergence.
I believe that symptoms contain within them the seed of solutions. For example, if you are depressed, that can be a message from your inner self that you are living a life that is incongruent for you. I invite the place in you that knows better to have a voice, so you speak and express yourself directly. The research on interpersonal neurobiology tells us that when we are heard by another person, we feel in our hearts a sense of home - the right to exist.
I provide counseling and hypnotherapy services to individuals and groups for stress, trauma, habit control, addiction, fears, phobias, life transitions, self-esteem, body image, effects of bullying and peer rejection, depression, anxiety, and many other concerns. Psychological health involves the mind-body relationship, and that will be a key focus of our work. I use conversation, cognitive-behavioral methods, hypnotherapy, psychodrama, energy work, and expressive therapies. These will be tailored to your needs and desires in order to provide a successful outcome.
More Info About My Practice
I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Nationally Certified Counselor, Clinical Hypnotherapist, and Board-Certified Psychodramatist. I currently practice in a wholistic health center, and also make home, office, clinic, and hospital visits. With bachelor degrees in Biology and Zoology, and a masters degree in Counseling Psychology, I tap the mind-body connection for physical, psychological, emotional, and behavioral health. I use hypnosis, counseling, and action methods to empower individuals and groups to overcome challenges, heal from trauma, create health and well-being, achieve goals, build and maintain healthy relationships, realize our dreams, and live rich, full lives. I also teaches stress reduction, conflict resolution, communication skills, emotional intelligence, cultural diversity, and how to create safe, inclusive, productive communities. I have taught to organizations, corporations, schools, non-profits, faith communities, and private groups. My hypnotic skills make my presentations fun, inspiring, and uplifting.
I offer psychodrama for personal growth, as well as building and maintaining healthy groups. I use sociometry to assess the health and functioning of any group via tracking its social connections, and who assumes which role(s). I teach these skills as well.
I am a licensed Health at Every Size facilitator, and holds groups to support everyone - whether on an eating and exercise regime or not - to love themselves and be healthy and happy. This is a scientific and humanistic approach which is shown to achieve greater long-term health and fitness goals in comparison to traditional dieting.
I'm currently accepting new clients.
My View on the Nature of 'Disorders'
Unhealthy symptoms often developed when our original attempts to meet our needs got thwarted. These normal, natural needs include love, belonging, comfort, validation, competency, and real nourishment. When those needs were unmet, andor we were shamed for having them, we adapted as best we could.
My goal is to empower you to meet your needs in a more life-affirming way, so you can live freely, reconnect to your authentic self, release creativity, and live out loud in the world. When you longer need negative symptoms as a poor substitute, they naturally fall away.
In my experience, adverse events are often doorways that open us to deeper, wiser, stronger, more compassionate and resilient aspects of ourselves that we may not have encountered otherwise. These are gifts we develop in addition to what we reclaim in our healing process. When we meet life directly, we forge our character. Knowing that, we can see ourselves as powerful and worthwhile, and able to create the changes we desire. We can then give back, and make meaningful contributions to the world.
Clinicians who offer sliding scale payment structures may offer lower or reduced fees based on an individual's ability to pay. Please contact this clinician for more details regarding their fees or sliding scale policy.