As a licensed professional counselor, I offer a variety of services and specialize in the treatment of:
- Addiction – including substance abuse as well as compulsive behaviors related to gambling, food, sex, technology, exercise, relationships, and other aspects of “typical” modern life that have become problematic for you
- Eating or feeding behavioral problems, including disorders such as binge eating disorder, bulimia and anorexia nervosa, and avoidant or restrictive feeding disorders
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (acute or complex) and acute stress responses
- Mood disturbances, including major depression and bipolar disorders (type I or II)
- Anxiety and panic disorders, including specific phobias or anxieties (such as misophonia)
- Obsessive-compulsive behaviors
- Personality adaptations
- Psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia
While these conditions are typically referred to as “pathological” in nature, I see them as natural (if maladaptive) responses to the biological and environmental events that constantly influence us throughout our lives. Neurocounseling can help you understand, on biological and psychological levels, why you feel and do things the way you do. The development of a more holistic understanding of both your internal and external experience can be an important step in learning new, adaptive ways to deal with stress and emotional pain. As this happens, we’ll be implementing tools that take advantage of your brain’s ability to create novel pathways. You will form and deepen new circuitry, while your old, unhelpful patterns lose biological significance.
There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t.
John Green
While this all sounds very intellectual, I have a profound sense that all the tools and information in the world cannot be of service to my clients without a solid foundation of trust and rapport between us. This is especially true given my belief that the relationship between us offers you a chance to understand the way you operate in other relationships in your life. First and foremost, we have to establish a strong connection so that you develop a sense that you’re on solid ground – and that you’re safe. Nothing else will be able to happen in therapy until that happens first. So, we’ll definitely spend some time just building that connection with each other. This is by no means an intellectual process, but an intuitive one – and different for each client I work with.