Services
Please browse my services below
Parent Coaching and Therapy
Coaching focuses more on the "now" and the "how" and typically concerns a short-term "stumbling block" issue. For example, your child is throwing temper tantrums and you can't control them, in parenting coaching, we would focus on the problem behavior, and possible triggers, and talk about actions you might try to resolve it. Situations better suited for coaching might include:
Parenting dilemmas
Family communication issues
Developmental issues
Mild problems at school
Low conflict divorce or custody difficulties
In relation to Coaching, Therapy focuses more on the past and "why", and typically concerns longer-term life issues. For example, if you and your spouse are divorcing, and your child has become sullen and withdrawn, in play therapy, we would focus on the root of this problem, the underlying emotions involved and how to work through them.Situations better suited for therapy might include:
Anxiety or depression
Aggression
Trauma
Sexual abuse or acting out
Grief due to death or loss
Mental health diagnosis
Ongoing problems at school or with peers
High-conflict divorce or custody difficulties
Maternal Mental Health and
Infant/Parent Psychotherapy
I offer maternal mental health and infant parent psychotherapy services as part of my practice. I provide services to mothers experiencing the transition into motherhood; dealing with issues of infertility and also during the pre/postnatal periods. The transition into parenthood can be emotionally complex and can lead to pregnancy or postpartum depression and anxiety.
We know postpartum depression affects children’s development and puts them at a higher risk of future psychiatric illness. In fact, maternal depression during infancy has a bigger impact on a child’s development than later exposure to maternal mental illness (Essex 2001, Moehler 2006). Infant parent psychotherapy is a way to address parents concerns with baby or young child present. This allows focused attention to the baby's individuality and careful consideration of the parent's experience.
No child is too young to be referred and all parents concerns are appropriate to consider. Parents with concerns about how their infant or young child is developing, relating, or behaving are invited to call for a consultation appointment. Mental health services are also appropriate when a parent or primary care-taker feels burdened, worried, or confused by the demands of parenting, or when parents must cope with difficult circumstances surrounding a baby's birth, health or special needs. Infant parent psychotherapy can address concerns about the baby or child, the parent, and the parent-child relationship including:
Fussy baby, excessive crying, difficult to sooth
Sleeping or feeding difficulties
Developmental concerns, including medical issues and hospitalizations
Birth of child following infertility and/or difficult pregnancy
Birth of child following a history of miscarriage, fetal or infant death
Traumatic birth
Parenting difficulties or uncertainties
Emotional relationship between parent and child
Sibling relationship difficulties
Parent depression or anxiety including perinatal mood disorders
Stress regarding the child or parenting
Change, loss, trauma or other life issues that affect parents, children, or the parent-child relationship
Child Play Therapy
Play therapy is to children what talk therapy is to adults. Play is a child’s language. In the playroom, toys, games and activities are used like words. Children are provided therapeutic toys to enable them to say with the toys what they have difficulty saying with words. They can use dolls, puppets, paints, or other toys to say what they think or how they feel. Many times difficult things happen in life and even the adults involved have difficulty understanding or explaining the events or their feelings about the events. It is easy to see why children, who lack the verbal skills of an adult, find it even more difficult. Play therapy allows children the opportunity to work through, heal, and move past the difficult times in their lives. Play therapy accomplishes all this in the most efficient, effective, and child focused manner available,not only does it work wonderfully, children love it!Through Play Therapy children learn about themselves and their surroundings, their capabilities, their limitations, they learn new skills, learn how to handle anger and frustration, heal, work through difficult times, and increase their self-esteem and ability to communicate.
Adolescent Work
As a teen therapist, I am here to be a supportive guide and give your family tools to create a stronger and more resilient family!
In my individual therapy with teens, I empower your adolescent to make good life choices, understand themselves, deal with their changing emotions, and have good healthy relationships!
I help YOU — the parent — in being the best mother or father you can be no matter what struggles your teen and your family is facing.
We can work together to help put and keep your teenager on a healthy path.