My Approach to Helping
Katy specializes in working with children (ages 3-17), young adults, couples, and families. Her areas of expertise include Autism Spectrum Disorder, Asperger's Syndrome, children coping with divorcefamily transition, and co-parenting. She is the creator and facilitator of the LifeMap Asperger's Social Success Group, which is a support group with a social skills coaching curriculum that teaches individuals on the autism spectrum how to successfully transition to the next stage of their lives. Katy has 7 years of direct clinical experience working with these populations.
AUTISM THERAPY - Katy Webb supports families as they navigate the complex emotions and multi-layered experiences of caring for a child or young adult with autism. Katy does this by empowering clients with the strategies needed to work through difficult emotions and new overwhelming experiences. Parents are coached to discover ways to maximize the wonderful potential of their child. By utilizing technology such as Facetime and Skype, Katy can be available to families across the United States if a face-to-face appointment isn't feasible.
CHILDADOLESCENT THERAPY - Katy enjoys working with young children and helping them cope with the stress of life in a more positive way. Katy has the energy to keep up with hyperactive kids - in fact, many of her therapeutic activities involve creative movement andor recreational therapy. When children confront problems and negative emotions in a clinical setting such as Katy's office, it allows them to change the way they think and feel. This positive change in the thoughtbehavior process leads the child to discover new solutions for their stress. Children learn to confront, define and master their problems.
TEENS, ADULTS, FAMILIES- Katy works with teens and adults experiencing challenges with managing depression, anxiety, body image struggles, relationship issues, and difficulties adapting to changes associated with major life transitions. Katy takes the time to hear the voice of each individual patient, uncover primary and hidden issues, and ultimately provides feedbackguidance. Her direct but supportive coaching style helps clients gain insight and motivation to more effectively manage emotions and behaviors, facilitate personal growth and make lasting positive life changes.
COUPLES - Katy's clinical expertise, extensive skill set, and vibrant enthusiasm for supporting couples, families, and those experiencing relationship challenges are clear. She helps individuals and couples remove the emotional blocks that stand in the way of achieving their goals. This creates new opportunities for couples and family dyads to develop practical life strategies to make healthy relational and personal life shifts.
More Info About My Practice
Katy Webb is a licensed clinical social worker based in Mechanicsville, VA. She lived in her hometown of Columbia, MD until she moved to obtain a psychology degree and play college soccer for the Richmond Spiders. She received her BA in Psychology from the University of Richmond and a Master of Social Work from Virginia Commonwealth University. Katy views therapy as an active and collaborative process of working towards positive therapeutic goals.
Katy utilizes a holistic approach to therapy and believes that optimal wellness is best achieved by integrating each client's unique physical, emotional and spiritual needs simultaneously. She has extensive experience working with depression, anxiety, trauma, eating disorders, assertivenesscommunication skills, health coaching, executive functioning skills, self-esteem, as well as parental skills training.
Specific Issue(s) I'm Skilled at Helping With
- Autism Spectrum Asperger's Coaching for Kids, Teens, Young Adults, Adults: As a certified and licensed autism specialist, I provide supportive coaching in social skills, communication, relationships, body language, emotional regulation, coping skills, job preparation, study skills, appropriate social media use, etc.
- ADOS-2 Autism Diagnosis, ADHD Diagnosis
- Helping children of all ages cope with the many adjustments that come with divorce and co-parenting
- Coping with chronic illness andor invisible illness
- Marital Pre-Marital Therapy
- Cancer survivorship and active cancer treatment
- Sport psychology, performance anxiety, and high-pressure work environments
- Gottman Couples Therapy Techniques
- Health, Wellness, Weight Loss and Nutrition
- Career Coaching and Career Advancement
- Couples Work for Neurodiverse Couples (one partner is on the spectrum while the other is neurotypical)
How Psychotherapy Can Help
Many assume therapy is just for anxiety, depression or grief. This can't be further from the truth! Therapy and life coaching are helping countless individuals with a wide range of needs. Check out this list below and see for yourself!
1. Career Counseling
What Is It? A career coach partners with you in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires you to maximize your personal and professional potential. It can help you evaluate your current job satisfaction and see if a change needs to be made. If so, a career clinician can help you set goals that lead to you landing the job of your dreams.
How Can It Help?? Accountability, positive encouragement and confidence are critical for goal setting and job change. Career coaching provides all of this and more. Achieving your career goals can lead to positive changes in all areas of your life. Coaching empowers and educates you on how to take charge of your career and achieve the success you've dreamed of.
2. Co-Parent Coaching DuringAfter Divorce
What's the Goal? Learning conflict preventionconflict management skills in order to work with your ex-partner for the betterment of your child's life
How Can It Help? By meeting with a therapist in the office, you will learn to speak up, be heard and listen to one another. The aim is to reduce conflict, improved cooperation by improving communication, the development of negotiation skills, parenting education and support as well as to bring awareness to each home's structure, boundaries, expectations, consequences, follow through and consistency.
3. Infertility, Infant Loss, and Miscarriage
What's the Goal? Coping with overwhelming pain, grief, and loss. Many individuals who have experienced a miscarriage or infant loss do not share it with their co-workers or friends. Therapy is a place where you can express emotion safely and privately.
How Can It Help? You will feel unconditional support and encouragement during a very difficult time in your life. You won't feel isolated, alone or disconnected. It is an excellent place for couples to open up and share their individual experiences with infant loss or infertility. Often, this is not discussed at home because the emotions are so intense and raw. Therapy can provide normalization, validation and the ability to get back on your feet.
4. Processing A Tough Breakup
What's the Goal? Emotional support from someone other than your friend or family member. A relationship break-up can be the end of a marriage, the end of a relationship with a long-term partner, the end of a relationship with a family member, the end of a friendship with a coworker, etc.
How Can It Help? Therapy after a painful or confusing breakup can be extremely healing. You may be experiencing depressive thoughts, lack of energy, insomnia, change in appetite, irritability, and lack of motivation at school or work. A therapist office is a safe place to discuss all the details with no judgment and no risk of your buddies saying "Just get over it already! Move on!". A therapist can help you work through the anxiety, sadness, trauma, and lack of closure.
5. Isolation: Loneliness in a Super Connected Instant Facebook Tweeting Society
What's the Goal? To help individuals of all ages balance their lives in a healthy way that does not include extensive amounts of time on social mediathe internet. Excessive internet or smartphone use is impacting the social development and brain development of the younger generation. This arena is somewhat complicated for therapists because, unlike other clinical issues or additions, the goal of treatment cannot be total abstinence from using the internet. This is not realistic because the internet is an integral element of today's professional and leisure culture. Instead, the primary goal is controlled use of the internet and its respective functions, particularly social networking applications.
How Can It Help? The age of "Screen Time" has started to take its toll on our society. A Pew Research Center study reported in April that 92% of teenagers go online daily, with 71% using more than one social media site. Twenty-four percent of the teens surveyed said they went online "almost constantly". New research is showing that teens who spend a significant amount of time using social media are more likely to report new or worsening mental health concerns. Issues with feeling left out, fear of missing out, feeling rejected, feeling jealous, etc. are commonly reported. Kids and adults alike are comparing their lives to the Facebook "highlight reels" of other people's lives and it results in deep sadness, resentment or anger.
6. Chronic Pain
What's the Goal? The goal is to help patients learn to accept where they stand with their paincondition at that time while also developing positive coping skills to lessen pain. Chronic pain affects many different areas of life. The interaction between biologicalphysical (pain and medical issues), psychological (cognition and affectemotion), and social influences help to explain the variability between individuals and their reports of pain.
How Can It Help? Chronic pain can often develop as a result of a mental health condition, and it is a more common symptom of psychological concerns than many people may realize. Chronic pain and depression are also often closely related: the stress of living with chronic pain can often lead to depression, and because some people may manifest depression in the form of physical symptoms instead of psychological ones, depression can also result in chronic pain. The stress that chronic pain might cause an individual to experience can also lead to increased pain by triggering muscle tension and spasms.
My Therapy Focus
My therapy focus when I am working with Autism Spectrum Disorder revolves around social skills and life coaching strategies. The goal is to help the child or adult learn new skills and modified behaviors that close the gap in social-emotional reciprocity, emotional expression, communication skills and interpersonal relationships. Cognitive-behavioral approaches are often used and are very effective. CBT is a pragmatic approach that does not use insight to understand issues as other forms of treatment do. Instead, CBT requires the breakdown of problems using intellectual analysis, which is a strength of individuals with Asperger's Disorder.
Therapy is extremely helpful when it comes to ASD. Depending on what the patient needs, various CBT therapy approaches can be applied. These may include skills for problem-solving, goal setting, assertiveness, time management and increasing daily activities, and sleep hygiene. Social skills groups and social skills coaching can help patients learn social cues, social reciprocity, conversation skills, specific behaviorsconcepts such as friendship or love and body language.
Many individuals with ASD have never developed the necessary life skills to navigate our complex social world. Therapistslife coaches seek to help individuals with ASD build those critical skills. In a safe and positive environment, the patient can practice social rules (e.g., do not discuss your lousy day in far too much depth when a stranger asks 'how you are doing today') and social principles (e.g., it is sometimes okay to tell a white lie to avoid upsetting somebody). Often treatment includes discussing and practicing higher level skills, like understanding the emotions and intentions of others.
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.