Counseling Services

  Individual Counseling    Couples Counseling

Family Therapy                     Supervision

Professional Consultation

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When individuals are experiencing trying times, they often forget about the assets they have and their natural abilities that can help them get a foothold and begin the process of change. My approach is one that both supports and challenges clients, and I strive to help people use their existing strengths to shed light on how they can overcome their problems and create a life that they find more rewarding, healthy, happy, and fulfilling. Developing treatment that is centered on developing both insight and real observable change is a hallmark of the work that I do.

I also work in a collaborative way with individual clients, believing that their knowledge about themselves, their lives, and their difficulties is paramount in gaining greater success and healing. As such, I want to hear from my clients about their experience in therapy so treatment can be tailored to their needs.

Individuals enter into therapy for numerous reasons, ranging from a desire for self-improvement and growth to contending with severe mental and physical illness. Psychotherapy can be of great help to all of these individuals. Below are listed some reasons people seek counseling. It is certainly not an exhaustive list. The reasons that people enter counseling are as diverse as the people who seek treatment.

Some reasons people enter therapy are:
 

* Normal Developmental Life Changes (e.g. transitions to school, new career) * Romantic Relationship Issues * General Relationship Issues * Work-related problems * Financial Difficulties * Existential / Spiritual Concerns (e.g. making meaning out of life circumstances) * Adjustment to physical illness * Marital / Couples Strife * Sexual concerns * Identity issues * Feelings of Depression / Sadness / Melancholy * Anxiety / Nervousness * Adjustment to emotional, social, or physical trauma * Coping with racism, sexism, or other prejudice and stereotyping * Stress * Career confusion / dissatisfaction * Family of origin issues * Parenting issues * Grief / Bereavement * Eating Disorders * Current family conflict * Problematic personality patterns that interfere with relationships and work * Attention / hyperactivity issues * Coping with Sexual harassment and assault * Addiction / Substance Dependence / Substance Abuse

I prefer to refer to work I do with romantically attached people as “couples therapy” as opposed to “marital therapy”. Couples therapy is not just for “married” individuals or heterosexual individuals. It can be helpful for anyone, of any age or sexual orientation, who finds him or herself in a romantic relationship that can be enhanced, changed, or even ended in order to make the two participating people happier. It by nature involves having both partners participate in the therapeutic relationship.

Engaging in couples therapy is a commitment to the health and well-being of your relationship and individual hopes and needs. Obviously, it helps if each partner in the couple has similar goals for therapy, but frequently partners come into counseling unsure of each partner’s expectations for the relationship, or concerned that they are not seeing eye-to-eye as to where the relationship is heading. This is a normal and understandable component of couples counseling. It is very common for the first work in couples therapy to be around romantic partners defining their individual needs and what they want to see happen in the relationship.

While I may occasionally meet with partners in a couple separately, this is relatively rare and only done if it can be “balanced” with meeting with the other partner individually. Because my alliance is to both members of a romantic couple when I am doing couples work, I make it clear with partners that I cannot be expected to keep content addressed with me individually confidential from the other partner. Often, I can assist in helping one or both partners discuss difficult topics with each other that they may first bring up with me individually.

I interact with couples in the same manner I do individuals. I treat each partner and their relationship with the utmost respect and compassion, and work with relationship strengths to help partners build a more desirable future together.

Family therapy is counseling done with individuals who are related in some manner and who need to work on issues that exist within the family system. Like individual and couples therapy, the reasons families come into therapy are as diverse as the individuals in family units. They can range from severe relationship conflicts to family adjustment to shared change (e.g. the death of a family member).

Family therapy can occur between as few as two people and as many, frankly, as my office can hold. It can be done with a person’s nuclear family and/or involve extended family members. In addition, it can be single or multi-generational.

I am particularly sensitive to the diverse cultures of families, and work hard to respect the values of the family units that seek treatment with me.

I am a licensed psychologist in the state of Colorado (#2820) and provide supervision to clinicians working toward licensure or in general need of clinical supervision. I have also been a licensed professional counselor in the state of Colorado, and as such have experience with, and knowledge about, the licensing procedures of several mental health practitioner boards. I am happy to discuss my supervision style with any interested clinician.

In addition to the counseling services I provide, I present and train on a variety of mental health topics and provide conflict mediation and organizational development services through Beacon View Consulting, LLC, a psychological services organization.