Clinical Social Work & Psychotherapy

Therapy can help you recognize and understand triggers for anxiety while you learn how to navigate and implement distress tolerance skills so that it no longer disrupts or dictates your life.

You can process past trauma in a supportive environment and learn to identify problematic thought patterns related to it that prevent progress. Understanding, reflecting, and mitigating negative thought processes surrounding trauma can help you become less reactive to those memories and beliefs.

Therapy can help individuals with this disorder recognize mood patterns and shifts to take preventive steps. You can learn healthy strategies and functional interventions to help manage the disorder so it does not control your life. Treatment facilitates greater awareness of self and of your needs so you can remain balanced and healthy.

Neurodivergent individuals process information differently, engage alternative perspectives, and identify unique challenges that may be managed more effectively with therapeutic support. Therapy can help incorporate flexible thinking, less rigid thought processes, strategies for social engagement, successful communication, navigation of systems, and much more.

Although cultural acceptance of diverse sexual and romantic orientations is growing, oppression and discrimination of people with LGBTQ identities is ongoing. Coping with societal stigmas, coming out to one’s family, and sorting out a genuine sense of self in the face of social expectations and pressures can lead to higher levels of depression, anxiety, substance use, and other mental health concerns for LGBTQ people. Therapy is a place where individuals can feel affirmed for their identities, process experiences, seek support and collaboration, and learn how to manage these unique challenges.

Good Therapy. (2018, January 10). LGBTQ Issues/Gender Identity & Sexual Orientation. https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/issues/lgbt-issues

Transgender individuals experience unique identities as members of a marginalized population in most countries. I specialize in exploring gender identity, body dysmorphia, and coming out to others. I am educated in WPATH standards and write letters for gender-affirming surgery and hormone treatment. I am well versed in the comorbid or dual diagnoses that many transgender individuals face.

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) is a disorder than can significantly impact a person’s ability to handle life tasks and work environments. It can make daily functioning much more difficult if not appropriately managed. Therapy can help individuals and caretakers learn strategies to understand how and why the ADHD brain works the way it does and integrate skills that harness strengths while managing challenging behaviors so you can work with the disorder rather than against it.

In certain circumstances, adoption can create attachment and identity challenges for both the adopted individual and within the family. Therapy can foster familial relationships, create understanding of how these challenges present, and expand upon internal identity struggles that may surface as a result of adoption or the adoption process.

Societal norms and definitions of relationships are ever expanding and are challenging the traditional monogamous views of dating and participating in intimacy. These dynamics are quite similar to standard relationships in that they center around more than one set of feelings, emotions, perspectives, beliefs, and values…oftentimes they center around multiple sets. Therapy is an excellent way to establish good communication between all parties involved and find healthy ways to respect everyone in the dynamic.

Parenting is tough! Adolescents and children present unique challenges for caretakers that can be perplexing and arduous. Therapy can provide support, guidance, understanding, and a path forward to help navigate the tricky dynamic that exists between caretaker(s), child/teen, and siblings.

Adolescence is both an exciting and challenging time of development when young people are establishing their own place in the world. They are navigating independence and autonomy while discovering the impact and importance of peer relationships, and yet they still require supervision and support that is not always welcome. Therapy can help an adolescent work through these conflicting dilemmas and make healthy choices to foster functional relationships and attachments.

Pregnancy is full of hormones and huge life changes that, while foreseeable, are not necessarily something a person can actually prepare for. It isn’t uncommon for parents and parents-to-be to experience unusual or scary thoughts they’ve never encountered before. They may start struggling with life situations that were never a problem in the past or fear being honest about these cumbersome thoughts and feelings. Therapy provides a collaborative, non-judgmental space where parents can share the weight of these heavy thoughts and struggles while creating a plan to manage the hardship.

Our relationships with other people are frequently the most difficult thing we encounter in life as we try to navigate other’s ideas, perspectives, beliefs, and emotions. Therapy offers a way to facilitate healthy communication and understanding between individuals in an effort to have functional interactions moving forward.

People facing domestic violence in their relationship are in a difficult position as they navigate safety and complex feelings with their partner. Therapy can provide support in a non-judgmental space where you can create a safety plan, build independence, access resources, and collaborate. Therapy is a space where you aren’t alone.

Oftentimes learning disabilities and other disorders create academic problems in school that require accommodations to meet the needs of a student so they can learn and thrive in their education. Therapy can help caretakers and individuals understand what accommodations may be necessary for their disabilities or disorders and I can work with schools directly to implement an effective IEP (individualized education plan) or 504 behavioral plan to help facilitate success.