1040 Great Plain Avenue
3rd Floor, Suite A
Needham, MA 02492
781-449-4779
Mindfulness Based Strategies Website
Specialties:
I see individuals from adolescence through seniors, as well as couples. My clients seek therapy for many reasons, including anxiety, depression, ADHD, addictions, eating disorders, relationship issues, poor self- esteem, grief and loss, and stress. Overall, I am interested in helping people overcome “stuck” patterns of behavior by developing healthier, more effective, and less limiting ways of coping with their challenges. I provide psycho-educational workshops, groups, and coaching, as well as psychotherapy.
Approach:
I have learned and incorporated many useful theories and techniques throughout the more than 25 years I have been in clinical practice. The most powerful and influential factor in my work as a psychotherapist is a belief system that pre-dates my professional career. It is my conviction that every person has strengths and abilities which can contribute to a positive and productive life. Pain and suffering result when our strengths are overwhelmed by the challenges we face. I view psychotherapy as a process by which strengths are identified, amplified, and unleashed, thereby empowering individuals to regain a sense of control and wellbeing.
Empathy, acceptance, and respect are the foundation of my relationship with each client. Through active engagement, the nature of the problem, its history, function, and impact on the individual or couple’s life and relationships, are fully explored. I collaborate with clients in identifying treatment goals, as well as in discussing and choosing treatment strategies that are in keeping with the clients’ values, belief systems, learning styles, and experiences, and adjust my role to correspond to what is most needed at the moment –listener, mirror, teacher, coach, or advisor. I draw from many theories and practices, including psychodynamic, developmental, cognitive-behavioral, narrative, DBT, ACT, and hypnotherapy.
Mindfulness-based psychotherapy involves experiential practices, exercises, and teachings aimed at cultivating awareness, focus, and acceptance, in a present-moment orientation, and developing a relationship with one’s thoughts, feelings, and patterns of behavior that allows for and promotes growth and change. In addition to incorporating Mindfulness into my treatment, I have developed a 4-session Mindful Living Workshop , which can be taken as an adjunct to therapy, or by anyone who would like to learn effective strategies for coping with stress, breaking free of unproductive habits, and making changes in service of achieving one’s potential and bringing daily life into greater alignment with one’s values.
Hypnotherapy is the latest addition to my professional toolbox. I have completed Level 2 training in Clinical Hypnosis through New England Association of Clinical Hypnosis, and I am working towards becoming certified in Clinical Hypnosis. I use hypnotherapy, in conjunction with mindfulness-based psychotherapy, to help individuals accomplish their goals.
Experience:
After graduating from Tufts University with a major in French, I earned my M.A. in Counseling Psychology from Lesley College. I went on to work with children, adolescents, adults and families in day treatment, outpatient substance abuse treatment, and residential treatment programs. I then returned to school and obtained my MSW in Clinical Social Work from Boston College. As an MSW, and then LICSW, I broadened my experience by working with elderly and hospice populations, working on an inpatient child/adolescent psychiatric unit, and completing a one-year fellowship in the Children’s Hospital Adolescent Clinic, where I received advanced training in eating disorders as well as adolescent mental health. I also worked at an inner-city charter school and consulted to an alternative high school. Since joining NPA in 2005, I have received extensive training in mindfulness, DBT, ACT, treating anxiety and stress, grief and loss, and working with problem/addictive behaviors.