Relationships offer tremendous opportunity for healing, growth and change. Also, they can be a great source of sadness, fear and conflict. Common obstacles to a more effective, meaningful, joyful life involve our beliefs about ourselves in relationship to others. Therapy can help expand ones self-awareness and personal growth. Whether you are experiencing difficulty interacting with others at work or home, struggling to manage frustration or other overwhelming emotions, working to eliminating problem behaviors, wanting more motivation to accomplish life plans or dreams, or simply searching for better relationships or family life, therapy can help you. You can speed up your personal growth and start to make choices to create the life you want rather than repeating old patterns based upon coping skills you have outgrown. Even if every single negative thing has happened to you, there is hope. I look forward to working with you in your search for growth and happiness.
Individual psychotherapy helps us gain greater self-awareness and understanding about our own actions. It helps us begin to identify and explore how our unconscious emotions and motivations can influence our choices and the way we relate to others. I provide psychological treatment to help you find solutions to the underlying causes to problematic situations, life patterns or relationships so you can create more of the life you want. I provide psychotherapy or counseling services for those facing many different kinds of problems.
Relationship and marriage counseling can be useful to couples who are experiencing repetitive arguments, emotional disengagement or feelings of emptiness in the relationship, ongoing feelings of anger, resentment or unhappiness, lack of physical affection or sexual interest in one another. The therapy process focuses on emotions, building skills, managing conflict, improving friendship, establishing a better connection and developing a shared meaning of life experience together.
Therapy I provide for teens is based on the idea that improving communication patterns and the ways adolescents relate to others will effectively treat the symptoms of depression, anxiety or other emotional or behavioral conditions.Typical goals for therapy include helping teens to identify, label and verbalize their experience of conflicting emotions. Learn to communicate effectively and interact appropriately with peers and adults. Learn to problem solve and to manage or regulate strong emotions and make healthy decisions.
Whenever I see that someone is stuck, repeating unhealthy patterns of thinking, feeling or behaving, I incorporate alternative forms of treatment. Some of these might include tapping, (Emotional Freedom Technique,) or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) as well as mindfulness based strategies to speed the therapy process. These forms of energy psychology build upon traditional psychotherapy methods to help people overcome self defeating emotional patterns and behaviors.
I am a Clinical Psychologist licensed in Pennsylvania and offer more than 32 years of experience and expertise in clinical psychology and psychotherapy. I earned my Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Immaculata University, a Master of Arts degree from West Chester University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Gettysburg College.
Prior to establishing my private practice, I worked for many years in a hospital setting, helping people adapt to physical changes relating to aging, illness or accidental injury. I have worked with people recovering from a wide range of health concerns, including accidental injury, chronic pain, cancer, stroke, spinal cord injury, brain injury, cancer, and surgical recovery of all kinds. Additionally, I have assisted people in reclaiming self awareness during their recovery from substance abuse and addiction, both in outpatient and inpatient settings. I have worked with all forms of mental illness and personality disorders in psychiatric facilities, outpatient mental health settings as well as correctional facilities. I have provided assessment services within nursing home settings for seniors who are concerned about dementia and other cognitive disorders. I have provided school based mental health services.
I specialize in evaluation and psychotherapy services for teens, adults, couples and seniors. A large number of the people I see are normal people with normal problems involving anxiety or depression. Often I work collaboratively with family physicians or psychiatrists. I help teens, adults and seniors adjust to changes in life such as new living arrangements, divorce or loss of a spouse, changes in relationships or family systems, changes in physical functioning and any other life transition. Also, I help blended families overcome challenges, adapt and grow together. More than just talk therapy, I offer EMDR as an additional therapy resource. My goal is always to offer the most current forms of traditional and nontraditional treatments according to research so that I can help you to relate better, heal and grow.