What is your style/approach to therapy?
My approach is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is a psycho-social intervention that aims to improve mental health. CBT focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions and behaviors, improving emotional regulation, and developing personal coping strategies that reduce current problems. My goal in therapy is to create a healthy therapeutic relationship with the client that promotes trust, care, and respect.
What do you view as a key component of the therapeutic relationship?
Components include: The ability to communicate empathy and understanding to the patient. The therapist's openness, flexibility, and willingness to adapt the treatment to the patient's needs. The therapists actively solicit patients' input about the goals and methods of treatment, to facilitate collaboration. Emotional bond of trust, caring, and respect; agreement on the goals of therapy; and collaboration on the treatment plan.
What excites you most about the evolving mental health landscape?
I'm excited about the changes in attitudes toward mental illness. Many beliefs toward mental illness vary among ethnicities, countries, cultures, religions, and families. With the evolution of telehealth, many families and individuals are taking advantage of mental health counseling. The convenience of teletherapy allows the client the ease and convenience of receiving counseling in the comfort of their home. I'm also excited about the new development of evidence-based therapies that treat trauma (EMDR). These new therapies are helping disorders like PTSD and other mental illnesses.
Specialties
Depression
Depression often causes people to feel sad, empty, or hopeless, and can cause a lack of interest in life. It can also affect a person's thinking patterns and physical health.
Anxiety
Anxiety can mean nervousness, worry, or self-doubt. Anxiety disorder is a mental health disorder that entails excessive, repeated bouts of worry, anxiety, and/or fear.
Loss/Grief
Grief is a reaction to an emotionally significant loss and often comes with symptoms of depression or anxiety. These symptoms can remain intense and last for a long time after a loss, making it difficult to move forward with a healthy lifestyle.
Academic challenges
Concerns that impact school performance or academic life. Can include perfectionism, bullying, financial stress, academic transitions, test anxiety, balancing school with other responsibilities, discrimination, or harassment.
Stress
Distress stems from a subjective perception of something being unwanted, undesirable, or detrimental to your wellbeing. Excessive stress significantly impairs mental and physical health and is associated with many diseases and conditions.
General Expertise
Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is the degree to which a person feels confident, valuable, and worthy of respect. Feeling low self-esteem can influence overall well-being and be linked to anxiety and/or depression.
Adolescent mental health
Adolescent mental health focuses on adolescent-specific experiences including physical and cognitive development, social and environmental factors, sex, sexual identification and orientation, emotional processing, and substance use. Given the influence that parents/guardians have on adolescents, home life is a particularly important consideration.
Anger management
It's normal to experience anger at times, but for some, it becomes so frequent, intense, or difficult to control that it negatively affects their life. Anger management is a structured therapeutic approach toward reducing one’s anger to a point where more appropriate coping and/or conflict management skills are used. Beliefs and thoughts leading toward anger outbursts are explored while healthy coping and interpersonal skills are put into practice.
Body image issues
Due to continued exposure to images of “normal” or “desired” body types, people can develop a range of positive or negative emotions about their appearance causing anxiety, depression, or eating disorders.
Child mental health
Children can be impacted by things like anxiety, depression, ADHD and more. However, they can be difficult to identify because kids aren’t always able to communicate effectively. Untreated, child mental health issues can have long-term effects.
Fees
$125
First Session
$125
Family Therapy
$125
Group Therapy
$125
Individual Therapy
Types of Therapy
Family Session
Individual Session
Clientele
Young Adults (18-24)
Adults (25-65)
Seniors (65+)
Adolescents (13-17)
Treatment Approaches / Modalities
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Mindfulness Practices
Bibliotherapy
Eclectic Therapy
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy
Motivational Interviewing
Person-Centered Therapy
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy
Training / Certifications
National Board Certificated Counselor
Licensure
VA, LPC, 0701010233
Education
M.A. Counseling, Regent University
Work History
My counseling career began over twenty years as a Professional School Counselor in the high school setting. While working as a School Counselor, I also worked as an Intensive In-home Counselor and was quickly promoted to the Crisis team. As a Crisis Counselor, I would counsel individuals with coping and support after a major crisis. As a crisis counselor, I learned several of the qualities of crisis intervention are empathy, patience, and compassion. As a Crisis Counselor, I created a safe space where my clients could share without judgment or bias. I would offer different perspectives and taught therapeutic skills to clients on their journey to wellness. I opened my private practice, specializing in anxiety and mental health disorders.
Location
5267 Greenwich Road, 301B, Virginia Beach, 23462, VA