Specializations
Trauma Counseling
Grief and Loss Counseling
Integrated Substance Abuse Counseling
Perinatal, Pregnancy, and Postpartum Counseling Support
Couples Counseling
Trauma Counseling
As a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional, I work with survivors of sexual abuse & trauma, complex trauma, PTSD, and depression/anxiety. In addition, I work with those exploring social oppression, ancestry, grief/sorrow, spirituality (including spiritual abuse), and domestic violence. By using forward-facing trauma therapy, I can support you in creating a step-by-step bridge from despair to optimal living.
Grief and Loss Counseling
I have commented to my patients that although sex and driver education are common subjects taught in high schools these days, not only is death education not a covered subject but rather, something the American public generally steers clear of. As a result, in times of great personal distress, an individual experiencing loss often feels alone, isolated, and misunderstood. Grief counseling is an area I have been addressing since beginning clinical practice over 9 years ago. My labor coach experience (labor coach since 2014) helps me in addressing loss associated with miscarriage, fetal demise, and death related to childbirth, genetic anomalies, and elective terminations. As a licensed mental health counselor, as well as part time professor at Northern Vermont University (where among other graduate courses I teach “Psychology of Death and Dying”) I work with individuals who experience loss from other vantage points. Divorce, even when viewed as a good choice, often comes with sadness and mixed emotions. Likewise, caregivers losing a spouse or parent will go through the mourning process despite what may be a blessed ending. All of these events require a period of mourning and a coming to terms with the absence of the loved one (including pets!). Patience, understanding, and acceptance are a necessary goal of treatment.
Perinatal, Pregnancy, and Postpartum Counseling Support
What was expected to be a period of calm and delight can turn into a time suffused with anxiety, obsessive worry, and depression. With 75-80% of all new mothers experiencing the “blues,” it is not unusual for this circumstance to deepen into feelings that just won’t let go. Factors for this reaction beyond a day or two of the blues are complicated. Counseling is an important tool for reducing and eliminating this distress. As a member of Postpartum Support International, I use interventions that are designed to assess the family situation and implement strategies to regain mental and physical health rapidly and effectively.
Integrated Substance Abuse Counseling
Addiction combines the most intractable elements of emotional problems with powerful ongoing biological pressure to remain in addiction. The patterns created by addiction can alter the structures of family and friendships, while permanently changing the chemical systems of the body. The process of repair and recovery can be long and stressful, however, it is not impossible. As a licensed drug and alcohol counselor, using techniques such as motivational interviewing, I will support you in developing relapse prevention skills. Together we will begin to develop a treatment plan so that you will know from the start the changes that demonstrate such progress.
www.motivationalinterviewing.org
Couples counseling
The purpose of couples counseling sessions is to create open lines of communication that will allow a couple to be more expressive and to treat their own relationship problems, usually without the need for ongoing counseling. If you’re in a relationship with any type of recurring issue, you may benefit from couples counseling. As a couple’s counselor, I can help couples approach issues such as adultery and affairs, problematic dishonesty, parenting skills, lack of communication, or some sexual dysfunction.
As a couple’s counselor, I try to keep communication open throughout the sessions and encourage the couple to find their own means of resolution. I focus on developing empathy and teaching couples to read each other’s emotions more accurately. As a part-time professor at Northern Vermont University, teaching in the Behavioral department for graduate students, one of my various courses is” Family Counseling”, which allows me to integrate many of the skills which I teach to implement into couples work. My theoretical approach and style are accessible, direct, and practical. I focus on the present-day changes my clients want in their relationships – and I orient our discussions towards these desired changes.
"Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you are taking right now."
Eckhart Tolle, author of “The Power of Now”