Brigid Woods, LCPC

What if you could treat yourself as well as you do your best friend? What if you could master your thoughts and fears and live a life that energizes you and doesn't leave you feeling "stuck in a rut" day in and day out? What would that feel like for you? I believe that we create our struggles based on how we treat ourselves and we would feel better if we were more self-compassionate and mindful in our daily lives. We need to learn to love ourselves as we are with all of our wonderful strengths, as well as our weaknesses; instead of shaming our own selves for our perceived shortcomings. What strengths you may be asking yourself? We all have strengths and in our work together I will help you to identify and to use those strengths to overcome your struggles in life. Together we will work on changing self defeating thoughts that keep you feeling "stuck" in life and help you to master those thoughts so you can think in ways that are more self empowering and self loving. I believe the key to happiness is learning to overcome our self defeating beliefs and behaviors. Happiness lies within our own selves but sometimes in life we can lose sight of this and end up struggling with having too much worry, too much sadness or too much avoidance of what needs to change in our lives. I will work with you on learning skills that will help you to lessen you worries, your sadness and assist you with lessening your avoidance of the difficult challenges in your life.

I am on most major insurance panels. If you do not have insurance, there is the ability to negotiate self pay at a reasonable rate.

Anxiety Depression Mood Swings Low Self Esteem Stress Management Procrastination Addictive Behaviors Attention Issues Relationship Issues WorkLife Balance Goal Setting Healthy Self Care Adolescent Issues Parenting of Adolescents Mid Life Transition Infertility Dealing with LossGrieving Growing up in an Addicted Family System Caregiver Stress

I am there to help you talk about the really difficult stuff in your life; the stuff you feel ashamed of and to help you work through this shame and learn to love you with all of your strengths and your weaknesses. I will listen to your concerns and together we will talk about different tools or approaches you could try to address that particular concern in your life. I am not there to tell you what to do as that needs to come from within your own self. I am there to guide you through the process and to help you come to the best choiceaction for your own self. I am there to push you along and challenge you when you don't believe in your own self anymore or your ability to truly change things in your life. I am not there to judge you as you are already doing a good job of that all on your own. I am there to help you sort through those judgments and throw away those that are no longer serving you well. I very recently received a letter from a young man I worked with in which he referenced how he did not fully understand all that he had learned in his therapy work with me until a couple of years after he left treatment and then he began to realize how the changes he was making in his life were the result of his being able to love his own self and not be as affected by other's perceptions and expectations of who he should be; this is what I mean by guidance. I can only show you the way; you have to do the work.

I believe it takes strength to know when life is too stressful and you are no longer handling things as well as you would like to in your life. There is a stigma that society puts upon mental health problems that makes others feel like something is terribly wrong with them if they need to go to counseling because we should be able to just move on or snap out of it! We don't tell someone with a physical illness to just snap out of it or they are weak; we are compassionate with those who are physically ill. We need to be compassionate about mental health issues in the same way. Having Diabetes is not seen as a shameful thing but yet others will look at Anxiety or Depression in this way; with proper management of Diabetes one goes on to live a full and healthy life and the same is true of Anxiety or Depression or any other mental health problem. A Diabetic is given tools to help them successfully manage their disease; in counseling you are given the tools you need to help you successfully manage your mental health issues!