Counseling involves your active participation and willingness to make healthy changes both inside and outside of counseling sessions. My role is to be helpful and to gently guide you in that process. You will probably be asked to do homework assignments between session such as reading articles or books (bibliotherapy), practicing mindfulness skills, “catching yourself” in an old behavior and learning to modify it, etc. Change may be easy and swift, but more likely it will be slow and deliberate and require repeated effort.

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It is expected that you will derive great benefit from the counseling process. However, there are also risks. For example, you may experience uncomfortable (but normal) feelings such as sadness, guilt, fear, anger, anxiety, and/or frustration. In addition, some of your relationships may change, usually for the better, sometimes for the worse. More often than not, the benefits will outweigh the risks.

I take an eclectic approach to counseling but will primarily use standard and accepted protocols from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and EMDR. However, I may also borrow techniques from other schools of thought, such as, Alfred Adler’s Individual Psychology, and Internal Family Systems (IFS). The decision as to which treatment technique to use will depend on several variables. For example, I consider the individual’s personality, the issue presented, and the success rate of a particular treatment. Although, I work mostly with individuals and couples, it is sometimes necessary to ask another family member(s) to join our therapeutic process.Should that occur, we would make that decision together.

 

The counseling process will require that we develop a therapeutic contract or treatment plan stating goals, methods, costs, and time frame. This plan will be re-evaluated and redesigned after periodically evaluating your progress. Please note that it is impossible to guarantee any specific results regarding your counseling goals. However, together we will work to achieve the best possible results for you.

I work with a variety of clients (primarily adults), who, are generally psychologically and emotionally “healthy” but are experiencing difficulties due to everyday stresses and painful life circumstances. I will enter into our working relationship with faith, hope, caring, and

commitment for you and the process, and will refer anyone whom I feel I cannot help using the techniques I have available.