My Approach to Helping
Specialties: Palliative care (comfort care) for individuals and families coping with terminal illnesses. Bereavementgrief issues due to expected and unexpected losses. Loss due to suicide, drug overdose, and accidental deaths. Post traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, depression, panic and anxiety disorders and anger management. Adult patients.
It is essential for people to feel they are able to manage their emotions and their emotions are not controlling their lives. “I’m bad, I’m weak, there is something wrong with me,” are mistaken ideas people have when they are suffering emotional pain. There is often shame and fear when individuals feel they need or are told “to get help”. It is no different to seek counseling for emotional pain than to call the doctor when one breaks a leg or has the flu.
I have experience helping people get back in their “drivers seat” regarding their emotions. When people are confused or suffering with emotional pain they are particularly vulnerable to fear, anger, and helplessness. This is often accompanied by a sense of purposelessness and not caring about much.
More Info About My Practice
As a therapist, I provide education, support, and comfort to maintain and improve functioning as well as maintain a person’s sense of feeling “normal”. Most of my clients, at first, are worried about “being normal”, when in fact suffering emotional pain is normal and part of the human condition.
I have enjoyed a career as a therapist for over 20 years. I have found that in the midst of emotional pain there is an awareness and honesty that leads to an opportunity to improved quality of life.
My training and experience emphasize using cognitive and behavioral therapy with a strong focus on helping to change unproductive behaviors, thoughts, and emotions that keep an individual stuck in a cycle of pain and poor quality of life. I was also a member of Trauma Disaster Team for 15 years at the DuPage County Health Department.
The goal: Education, understanding, support and helping to realize one’s personal strengths and unique gifts as human beings.
Specific Issue(s) I'm Skilled at Helping With
Palliative care (comfort care) for individuals and families coping with terminal illnesses. Bereavementgrief issues due to expected and unexpected losses. Loss due to suicide, drug overdose, and accidental deaths. Post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, depression, panic and anxiety disorders and anger management. Adult patients.
