Depression
More than just sadness in response to life’s struggles and setbacks, depression changes how you think, feel, and function in daily activities. It can interfere with your ability to work, study, eat, sleep, and enjoy life. Just trying to get through the day can be overwhelming. I employ cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Insight Oriented therapy to help clients get their power back.
Couples
Every couple experiences highs and lows throughout their relationship, from small-scale scenarios to larger issues. According to marriage and family counselors, couples often have disagreements that go unresolved. In fact, many arguments end in frustration or lead to another fight. This implies that some of these arguments tend to have the same patterns, causes, and consequences. Through therapy a couple can learn to improve communication, have appropriate disagreements without feeling silenced, and improve the bond by validating vulnerability and need.
Substance Abuse:
Addiction and substance abuse is not solely defined by amounts, types of substances, or negative impact on life, it is much more than this. Substance abuse and addiction is heavily based on your relationship to your substance(s). How did you get into this relationship? Why do you stay in this relationship? What benefits does this relationship bring you? What are the costs of these benefits? Is there a way to get these same benefits outside of this relationship? Using the empowerment model, agency, and relapse prevention techniques, I help my clients end destructive attachment.
Co-Dependency:
Perhaps you are realizing you discount your feelings, and overlook your needs and allow others to tell you what to think, feel, and behave. Your opinions, thoughts, feelings, recede into the distance in order to “keep the peace”. Have you developed a rigid notion that if you just “get it right,” things would be okay? Do you find yourself saying or thinking the words “Always” or “Never” to describe people important to you? In my practice we use many of the same models of addiction treatment for codependency. Through therapy my clients come to learn they cannot control others or situations and embrace plus exercise what they do have agency over.
Newly Diagnosed and Long Term HIV+:
Stigma and shame are two of the primary feelings newly diagnosed HIV+ people feel. Since the most common route of transmission of HIV is sexual intercourse, our communities, society and culture, attach punitive and harsh judgment to this disease. You have nothing to feel ashamed about. We work together to end the lie of guilt, build your self-confidence, and reclaim your sexuality. For those who have been HIV+ for several years issues of loss, relationship, community, retirement, and legacy become the focus of counseling. Through addressing unresolved loss, allowing for “finding meaning” in surviving, and exploring an acceptable retirement, my clients are able to move into the future with confidence.
Loss:
Is about the strong emotions that arise after the death of a loved one. It can be thoughts like “I will never be the same” or “What do I do now?” It can be a deep longing and a desire to withdraw. Loss can also be linked to other causes. The loss of a dream that never came true, the loss of an identity that was once firm, now gone or in question, the loss of a relationship, of a pet, of a friend, of an ideal, of a belief. Loss has many causes and can take many forms. Loss is universal. I use grief and loss counseling in my practice coupled with finding meaning in loss. What can loss teach us about ourselves, what can we learn from loss? How can we take these insights forward so loss becomes part of the integrated fabric of life? These questions and your responses start to become clear through therapy.
Life Phase and Aging:
As we go through life things change. Our career begins to rise, arch, and starts to fall. Our children begin to develop a sense of self and leave us. Friends once close and dear to us find relationships, move away, die, or fade away. Our once vigorous and active self now tires easily, or the mind continues to push but our bodies resist. We start to feel we are not attractive or desirable. We see ourselves slouching towards the finish line alone, where we thought we would break the tape, hands held high, people all around. Through therapy my clients learn about the cycles of adjustment and acceptance. Using empowerment and affirming therapies my clients learn they do not have to accept tropes about life phases or aging. My clients learn to take on the challenges of these phases of life and use intention to work towards centering self within the limits of each phase.
Available for Supervision:
I have been a clinical supervisor for 20 years. I have supervised MSW and MFT students as well as associates post graduate school. I consider my supervision to be analytical, theoretical, self-determinant, and getting you your license. Analytical: Why am I perusing this field? Theoretical: What theories of practice am I drawn to, what theories of practice do I want to learn, how does the DSM fit in? Self-Determinant: What is my responsibility in supervision, what is my responsibility to my clients, what is my responsibility to this profession? We will work together using case conference, analysis, law and ethics, resources and clinical focus, to provide you with the foundation you need to be successful not only on the test for license but in your career.