Therapists in 23230

"Are you feeling stressed out about your relationships, employment, finances, addiction, your future? Is your stress causing anxiety, tension and depression? Trouble sleeping due to stress, anxiety and past/current trauma? I am interested in helping people live their best life. I am concerned with how stress affects us and I am trained and skilled to assist people in learning skills and strategies to reduce their stress and find more happiness in their lives. I have experience treating individuals with mood and thought disorders, substance abuse, trauma, stress and anxiety and a host of life issues.

Are you feeling dragged down by life's challenges? The Zen proverb 'Let go, or be dragged' reminds us that in order to be free of suffering, we must let go. I am inspired by secular Buddhism and believe that suffering is an innate human experience, not created from life's problems, but from our clinging to "the way things should be" and resisting impermanence and change. I help individuals develop acceptance through mindfulness and other Eastern teachings to provide them with freedom to flow with life and equanimity to remain calm even amongst the most chaotic storms.

When thinking about emotional growth, I find it helpful to contrast it with physical growth. Developing into our full-grown physical selves is a fairly automatic process relying primarily upon biology. Our emotional growth however requires guidance and nurturing from caregivers to develop us into our full-grown emotional selves. For some of us, this emotional development was either missing or short circuited and we can find ourselves navigating a world of relationships and uncertainty without the emotional intelligence needed to recognize and understand our emotions, and to respond to those emotions in healthy and productive ways.

I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a passion for working with adolescents, experiences of trauma and addressing family concerns. I view therapy as a collaborative and exploratory process to find a deeper meaning of self, develop awareness, and enhance strengths. I obtained my BSW at James Madison University in 2008 and my MSW at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2009. I have been licensed since 2015. I have a background in Community Based Mental Health services for both children and adults since 2009.