My Background
I am a licensed mental health counselor with five years of experience. Prior to working at Simply Thrive, I worked primarily in forensic settings and University Counseling Centers. I am trained and experienced in doing individual therapy with adults (18 years and over), and psychological evaluations. I enjoy working with clients of many backgrounds and lived experiences. Though trained as a broad generalist, I often work with clients experiencing various forms of depression and anxiety, which my chosen approach to therapy (cognitive behavioral therapy) lends itself well too. As a BIPOC veteran, I have a particular interest in working with members of the veteran and BIPOC communities.
I hold these qualifications:
I have a doctoral degree in counseling psychology (Ph.D) from Washington State University, whose program is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA). I completed an internship in health service psychology, approved by the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC). I am licensed as a mental health counselor in Washington State.
About Psychotherapy
I strongly believe in the therapeutic alliance, that a client should be comfortable with their therapist and believe that positive change can happen, which increases the benefit of receiving therapy.
I see therapy as the meeting of two experts, the client, who is an expert in their lived experiences and knows what they have done in the past and might be willing to try in the future to improve their well-being, and the therapist, who after years of study and training is an expert in psychology. In session the two experts consult about what might be helpful in addressing the client’s stated goals of therapy.
My theoretical approach is based on an integrated framework drawing heavily from cognitive behavioral and person-centered therapy. Above all, I believe the most important aspect of therapy is the relationship between client and therapist and that this relationship is key to facilitating change. I believe that our thoughts and behaviors have a huge impact on our emotions. Sometimes the thoughts and behaviors we experience may start out as helpful but eventually overtime can become unhelpful, therefore, a core belief in my work is that if an unhelpful pattern of thinking or behavior has been learned, it can also be unlearned and changed.
Goals of my treatment are to assist clients in understanding why they are thinking or behaving in a certain way, to identify ways to challenge these thoughts and find alternatives to current unhelpful behaviors and to create new ways of behaving and thinking to assist the client in reaching their therapeutic goals by overcoming negative life experiences.