Specialty Areas

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Trauma and Abuse
• Relationship Problems
• Couples Counseling

My Approach to Counseling for Depression, Anxiety, and Relationship Problems

Counseling does not need to be an unstructured endeavor that aimlessly meanders around the vast and complex landscape of your life. My strength is in helping you to pinpoint and transform the core underlying issues that will impact your healing process most effectively.

I have a present-centered focus, which means that together we identify the important aspects of your life that you would like to change. Then using specific counseling techniques, I support you to overcome the barriers from your past that are blocking you from achieving your goals in the present. Thus, the past is only touched on as a means of creating greater freedom and fulfillment in the present.

My approach works toward strengthening your sense of wholeness and empowerment. If you've had painful experiences in your past, it’s easy to doubt yourself or to start believing that you are flawed. You may have even begun to overlook your talents and resources. My role is to help you release the barriers that hold you back from reconnecting with your inner-strength and confidence.

Because I have an integrative counseling approach, I combine a wide range of therapeutic skills to meet your personal needs and facilitate deeper healing. I draw on years of experience with my own meditation practice and from facilitating guided meditation, relaxation, body-awareness, and visualization exercises. This tends to significantly enhance the therapy techniques that I use, including EMDR, Energy Psychology, and Body-Mind Therapy. This approach also helps to draw on your intuition and wisdom as part of the healing process.

By utilizing a psycho-spiritual counseling orientation, I am able to blend methods and perspectives from Western psychology and the Eastern spiritual traditions. Western psychology is especially strong for identifying and working through the painful feelings, distorted beliefs, and unhealthy behavior patterns that are at the root of anxiety, depression, and relationship problems.

Eastern spirituality offers another dimension in the quest for optimal mental health, facilitating a deepening into your true nature, which contains the inherent qualities of love, happiness, presence, and inner-freedom. A deeper connection with your true nature is a powerful antidote to feeling unhappy and dissatisfied. Utilizing both perspectives – East and West – offers a very effective approach to growth and healing.

My passion is in helping you to release the painful patterns and ways of thinking that hold you back in life, so that you can live more fully in the present.

In my approach to counseling for depression, anxiety, and relationship problems, I utilize a highly effective 3-Part Healing Process:

1. Release Feelings Associated with Trauma

We begin by releasing the negative feelings that are associated with past traumas, such as anxiousness, sadness, helplessness, panic, and fear. I use specific counseling techniques that gently and effectively help you to neutralize the emotional charge associated with anxiety, depression, and relationship struggles.

2. Transform Negative Thinking

After we have neutralized the feelings, we next work on your negative thinking. Based on difficult experiences from earlier in your life, you may have developed certain negative beliefs that reinforce your anxiety, depression, and relationship struggles. I utilize effective counseling methods that help you transform your negative thoughts into a positive, empowering mindset. Imagine how much different your life would be if you experienced thoughts that were positive and supportive of your life goals!

3. Shift Unsatisfying Behavior Patterns

I help you to shift the unsatisfying behavior patterns that fuel your anxiety, depression, and painful relationship problems. By overcoming your fear of rejection, social withdrawal, perfectionism, inner criticism, addictive behaviors, and other patterns, you can experience greater happiness and a better relationship with yourself and others.

The ultimate goal of our work together is to help you experience a greater sense of empowerment, fulfillment, and satisfaction in all areas of your life.