Individual Therapy

 

Individual Therapy May Help You:

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• Live proactively vs reactively

• Live Happier and More Satisfied

• Reduce anxiety and/or depression

• Manage mood swings/emotional regulation

• Reduce Stress with stress management and Overwhelm/Balancing Priorities 

• Relieve Emotional Suffering/traumatic situations

• Strengthen Family Relationships

• Improve Self Esteem

• Develop More Appropriate Coping Skills 

• Make Positive Change

• Break Unhealthy Habits

• Learn more effective communication 

• Get Needs Met

• Develop Appropriate Boundaries

• Manage Substance Use or Addiction

• Improve Work Relationships

• Become a Better Parent

• Manage Crisis/trauma

• Overcome Grief and Loss

• Improve Work/Life Balance

• Recover from Break Ups

• Manage Anger

• Manage relationship issues

• Manage life changes

• Set and Reach life goals

 

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Couples

 

Being in a romantic relationship requires work. 

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Are you feeling unappreciated, a lack of respect, a break down in your partnership? 

 

Couples come to therapy for any number of reasons.  The greatest issues include sex, communication, money, and major life changes such as getting married, starting a family, or infidelity. Couples therapy is also a good idea if one of you is coping with an issue that might be affecting your relationship (such as depression or trauma) or simply if you're feeling stuck and stagnant in your relationship. Couples therapy can be critical to helping people navigate the immense amount of emotions that they experience as their relationships change and grow. Learning to communicate is learning a new language for many of us.

 

• Feeling more appreciated and respected

• Living Happier and More Satisfied lives

• Improve Communication

• Reduce frequency or Intensity of Arguments with more effective communication tools

• Relieve Emotional Suffering

• Strengthen Relationships

• Talk about Sex, Money, Parenting 

• Reduce Conflict

• Stop Old Patterns and Cycles  

• Make Positive Change

• Break Unhealthy Habits

• Develop Appropriate Boundaries

• Divorce or Separation

 

 

Child & Teen Therapy

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Wondering if a new behavior is typical? 

Concerned about change in mood?

Appears out of control or excessively angry?

Negative or worsening attitude? 

Isolating often in their room?

Notice a sudden drop in grades, changes in friends or motivation?

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My Approach to Therapy with Children and Teens

 

I believe that the most important part of treatment is the relationship between the therapist and child. I am also passionate about working with parents and improving the entire family dynamic and relationships. I believe that I can be a valuable resource to the whole family and treatment team (including school professionals and other professionals involved in the child's care). As such, collaborative care is always my focus and goal as I believe that treatment is most successful when all involved people are on the same page. 

 

When I work with children I utilize many different interventions and strategies towards building self-esteem, improving symptoms, empowering change, and providing a safe place to explore feelings. I am non-judgmental in our approach, believing many childhood issues are developmental in nature or responses to difficult transitions. It is important to note that each strategy that we use is chosen for a specific reason in that child's treatment. Some of the methods used may include

• Play Therapy

• Expressive Art Approaches 

• Cognitive Therapy

• Mindfulness 

• Behavioral Planning (with family and child typically) 

• Metaphorical story telling

•  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy 

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Individual therapy for a child or teenager can be critical to helping them navigate the immense amount of change they experience as their body and mind grows.  During this period of growth and maturity, our children need help and guidance to develop appropriate social skills and emotional intelligence. 

 

Parent and family involvement is often an important aspect of child therapy.  You can expect to have family meetings with your child and the therapist, so that everyone is on the same page.

 

Teens 

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Adolescence is a time of constant change — physical, psychological, emotional, academic and social. Teenagers often feel stuck between wanting independence and still needing guidance. They struggle with such issues as identity, fitting in, communicating with adults, social media, bullying, peer pressure and relationships and exposure to alcohol and drugs. They often prefer to remain silent and hide their pain or confusion, pretending that they are okay because they don’t want to upset their parents or appear different from their peers. When teens experience emotions or engage in behaviors that interfere with their happiness and ability to thrive, they may benefit from meeting with a mental health therapist.

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Parents worry when they see significant emotional or behavioral changes in their child. If you have an adolescent who is feeling misunderstood, depressed, anxious, withdrawn or alone, unsure about to how to express their wants and needs, or experiencing sudden changes in mood, we can help.

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I understand the developmental challenges adolescents face.

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I have over 30 years experience and expertise in helping teens navigate their way through depression and other emotional pain, anxiety, trouble communicating with parents or siblings, substance abuse, peer relationships, academic pressures and LGBT identity issues. My goal is to provide a safe and supportive place to help teens discover who they are, express their feelings and help them better understand themselves and their place in the world.

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Discernment Counseling

 

How is Discernment Counseling different than Couples Counseling?

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In couples counseling both people are committed to making the relationship work. In discernment counseling one partner may already have one foot out the door and using therapy as one last try.

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Sometimes one or both of you aren’t sure you want to work on the relationship, or you might feel hopeless that it can even work. Should you stay, should you go? Have you tried everything you can for the relationship to be different?

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Option one is acknowledging and understanding the relationship as it has been. Choosing not to decide right now

 

Option two is separation/divorce.

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Option three is a six month commitment to couples therapy (and sometimes other resources) with divorce off the table, after which you can make another decision about whether to stay or leave.

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The goal is for you to gain clarity and confidence about a direction based on a deeper understanding of your relationship and its possibilities for the future. You will be working to decide between the options of committing to couples counseling, choosing to separate or divorce, or deciding not to decide right now. If you ultimately make the decision to leave it will be with the resolve that you gave the relationship every opportunity.  I will respect whichever option you choose while helping you to increase the possibility that your relationship can be restored to health.

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Even if this relationship ends, Discernment Counseling can help you have success in your future relationships.

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Divorce Counseling

 

Often clients seek out therapy to deal with difficult emotions related to divorce. No matter how difficult the relationship, both parties likely feel a sense of loss, hurt and pain. The process of divorce can be traumatic and bring feelings of  loneliness, depression, and anxiety. If there are children, helping them to understand and cope with divorce can be overwhelming. Therapy can help clients to handle and deal with the change that comes with divorce as well as work through distress, grief, and other difficult feelings. If children are involved therapy can also help with co-parenting issues

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LGBTQ+ and Gender Therapy

 

As a psychotherapist, it is my passion and commitment to create a safe and affirming space for LGBTQ+ youth and adults. It can be essential to work with a therapist that “gets it” and is 100% affirming. If you are seeking therapy for gender and sexual identity issues or just want a safe space to be you to address other life challenges, I am here to support you

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Men's Issues

 

There are two qualities that define most men: they seldom like to ask for help, and do not like to talk about feelings.

Men like to think of themselves as strong, problem-solver types.

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Do you have a problem that’s affecting your ability to function? Is it costing you jobs? Relationships?

 

It doesn’t matter where it came from. It’s important to get help.

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Real men reach out for help. Seeking help is a sign of strength, it takes strength and trust to allow the vulnerability needed to reach out for help to take necessary steps to want to improve one’s life.

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My hope is that I can offer you a safe place to leave your façade and explore who you are, who you want to be and what you want to accomplish in your life.

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Women's Issues

 

As women, we are constantly defining and re-defining ourselves. As we journey through different phases of our lives, we sometimes face challenging decisions and difficult transitions. Therapy can help women develop a stronger identity, increased well-being and a sense of empowerment and can be enormously healing.  Women have unique pressures in our society. We are told that we can 'have it all' and can feel exhausted and defeated when we find that we cannot, at least not all the time. I can work with you to explore the pressures in your life, and to develop or improve coping skills. We can examine alternatives that could lead to a more satisfying and healthy life. In our society, women are so often taught to put their needs second and to take care of everyone else first. While these qualities can sometimes be helpful, they can also trap us in patterns in which we lose track of our needs and disconnect from our authentic selves. We teach others what our boundaries are and the necessity in respecting them. In an age of social media the pressure is immense to live up to what we perceive as the truth often times yet just an illusion. Therapy offers a place to identify our needs and to reconnect with oneself, explore and practice boundary setting and self care.  Women face so many challenges and I want to help you meet your life goals by creating and maintaining strong boundaries, being assertive just as I have done for many clients in the past. We struggle with body issues, self-esteem and confidence, relationship strains, employment advancements, motherhood, finding our individuality while still being part of a community, and so much more. I am here to help with it all.

 

Some issues that may come up in therapy:

• Self esteem

• Parenting

• Pregnancy and Childbirth

• Adjustment to Motherhood

• Baby Blues

• Postpartum Depression

• Pregnancy loss

• Infertility

• Female sexuality

• Work/life balance

• Conflict of gender roles & expectations

• Anxiety/depression

• Work related issues/discrimination 

• Self harm

• Hormonal issues

• Trauma/abuse

• Domestic violence/abusive relationships

• Difficulty setting boundaries 

• Sandwich generation 

 

 

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

 

Accept your reactions and be present

Choose a valued direction

Take action

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Act uses strategies of acceptance and mindfulness. Living in the moment and experiencing things without judgment along with commitment and behavioral change as a way to cope with unwanted thoughts, feelings, and sensation. The hope is by noticing and accepting these experiences it places them in a different context while developing greater clarity about personal values and commitment to needed behavioral change and psychological flexibility.   Acceptance and commitment therapy allows people to perceive and experience through different lenses and learn not to overreact to them, and not avoid situations where they are occur. ACT teaches them to "just notice," accept, and embrace their private ACT aims to help the individual clarify their personal values and to take action on them, bringing more vitality and meaning to their life in the process, increasing their psychological flexibility.  

 

ACT commonly employs six core principles to help clients develop psychological flexibility:

1. Cognitive defusion: Learning that our perception is our truth and others may have a different truth

2. Acceptance: Allowing unwanted private experiences (thoughts, feelings and urges) to come and go without judgment or struggling with them.

3. Contact with the present moment: Awareness of the here and now, experienced with openness, interest, and receptiveness.

4. The observing self: watching without judgment

5. Values: Discovering what is most important to oneself.

6. Committed action: Setting goals according to values and carrying them out responsibly.

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Work Stress Management

 

Dealing with Work Stress

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The workplace can be a stressful environment in which there is significant competition and pressure to perform. Work schedules can be demanding and it is often difficult to balance work and family life. Financial stress contributes to the pressure to keep up especially in Southern California. People often seek out work stress management therapy to talk about work-related anxiety, challenges with co-workers and bosses, and situational stressors that may interfere with concentration and job performance. Work Stress Management can help people decrease stress, increase assertiveness, and manage conflicts in better ways,

 

Clients also often seek out therapy when job dissatisfaction is causing significant unhappiness, hopelessness, stress, and anxiety. A job or career change may seem impossible and unrealistic, and one may feel very alone. Therapy can help to normalize these feelings and assist clients in gaining insight into their career paths and making decisions that support their happiness. Just having someone to talk to other than friends and family can decrease anxiety and shed perspective on various situations, leading to feelings of increased confidence, control, and personal satisfaction.