My tools
The relationship does the work. The tools serve it.
I am person-centered by foundation and evidence-informed in practice. What that means in a room, rather than on a credentials list, is described below.
What you can expect from me
Presence
Full attention, for fifty minutes, from someone who is not managing you, evaluating you, or waiting for their turn to speak.
Genuineness
I am a real person in the room. I will tell you what I notice, including when it is uncomfortable, and I will not hide behind a technique.
Unconditional positive regard
You do not have to perform, edit or justify yourself here. Nothing you bring will change how I regard you.
Curiosity
Behavior that looks irrational usually makes sense once you understand what it is protecting, so we look for that sense rather than for fault.
Collaboration
You are the expert on your life. I bring clinical training, structure and an outside perspective. We decide the direction together.
Clinical care
Careful assessment, attention to risk, clear boundaries, and regular qualified supervision. Warmth and rigor go together.
How the work usually proceeds
This is a rough shape rather than a protocol. In practice these phases overlap, and we move between them as your life requires.
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01 · Understand
Patterns, not symptoms
History, context, what you have already tried, and what keeps the pattern in place.
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02 · Regulate
Steadier ground
Skills for anxiety, rumination and overwhelm, so that the deeper work is possible rather than destabilising.
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03 · Strengthen
Relationships
Boundaries, honesty, repair, and asking for things, at home and at work.
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04 · Reconnect
Values and meaning
What matters to you now, distinct from what you were taught to want or rewarded for wanting.
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05 · Experiment
Deliberate change
Small tests between sessions, reviewed together, adjusted as we learn what actually holds.
My tools
What I draw on, and when
Methods are chosen with you and tailored to you. Not every client works with every method, and no method guarantees a particular outcome.
Person-centered therapy
The foundation: empathy, genuineness and unconditional positive regard. This is the stance I hold whatever else we are doing.
EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, for traumatic or distressing experiences or memories that still intrude on the present. Used where it is clinically appropriate, with preparation, your agreement, and within the scope of my training and current supervision.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Structured work on the thinking and behavior that maintain anxiety, avoidance, rumination and perfectionistic standards.
Solution-focused therapy
Useful for focused, time-limited work: what is already working, what has worked in the past, what you want instead, and the smallest next step toward it.
Motivational interviewing
For ambivalence, the place where you want two incompatible things and have been stuck between them for a while.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
Direct work on the rigid demands underneath distress, the musts and shoulds you hold yourself and other people to. Particularly useful for perfectionism, self-criticism and the belief that anything less than excellent is failure.
Family Systems Therapy
Looking at a person in the context of the system they belong to: roles, alliances, unspoken rules and inherited patterns.
Trauma-informed care
This is a framework rather than a technique: pacing, choice, transparency and safety, whatever we are working on.
Scope of practice
I practice as a New York Mental Health Counselor under a Limited Permit, with qualified supervision. Mental Health Counseling services are provided through Cognizant Psychotherapy. Supervision is a routine part of good clinical care and it ensures that our work benefits from more than one clinical mind.
I do not provide medication management, emergency or crisis services, inpatient care, or court-ordered evaluations. Where you need care beyond my scope, I will say so and help you find it.