Laura Rothafel, LMFT, LPCC

One of the greatest gifts we have to offer is calm in the midst of chaos. If you are looking for a therapist for you or someone you care about then somewhere there is turmoil. Rarely do we seek help when things are good in our lives. My job is to be the sounding board so that you can process in a safe non threatening environment what is going on in your life that is causing distress. Sometimes the process is to get you unstuck and help you push through a decision that needs to be made. Or, it is to slow you down from being in a reactive phase and then move toward a proactive state. Learning how to pause and recognize the things in which we have control over is a gift because then you can move towards decreasing frustration and anxiety. Learning to focus on your strengths and the strengths of others allows us to experience our world in a more positive manner. It is often difficult to experience what is good in our life when we focus on the bad. And when we know what is good, right, or happy we can do more of it! Leaning mindful techniques will help increase internal and external awareness. Increasing communication skills will help us to connect our reality to others. Please join me in the process...

Recognizing and working with addiction seems to be an area of natural strength. Early on I wanted to work with children but found that working with their parents had the greatest impact on everyone's life. I ended up working with pregnant substance abusing women and it forever changed my life. Nobody grows up and says "I want to be an addict or Alcoholic when I grow up." It is a difficult disease that carry's judgement, pain and suffering. What started out as fun or an escape becomes a prison with out walls until you get help or get caught. With addiction comes regret over things said and done. My philosophy is I need to know where you have been but more importantly I want to help you get to where you want to go.

Unfortunately there is still a great stigma about going to therapy. It takes courage to go against the tide. Families and various cultures have strict guidelines about sharing personal family business...sometimes out of fear or shame. It takes courage to honestly share your experience especially if you are experiencing guilt, shame or depression. What people don't realize is that if we begin to acknowledge and accept our feelings and emotions we can learn from them. We are the teachers in this emotional realm. If you didn't grow up learning how to listen to your inner workings, now is the time! It is just like getting under the hood of a car or trying to recreate a recipe.