Hello! I have been a practicing psychologist for over twenty-five years and I am still loving working in this field. My Ph.D. was obtained at Brigham Young University in 1995. Following doctoral training, I completed an internship through the Baylor College of Medicine. My final training was a doctoral fellowship through the University of Texas Medical School in Houston.
As a dedicated cognitive-behavioral therapist my passion is to give my patients the best tools possible to create a solid foundation of well-being in life by building adaptive thoughts and behaviors to improve mood, relationships and well-being.
The types of difficulties most seen in my practice are depression, anxiety, bipolar symptoms, trauma, grief, and life adjustment. It is my goal to provide clients with tools, support and practical feedback.
Therapy should be an individualized program of meeting a patient’s unique needs. There are many tools that are combined to create a special program for each patient. One important tool is cognitive restructuring, or reframing. This is a process of altering automatic destructive thoughts to ones that are more rational, reasonable, and helpful for everyday life. Mindfulness and other forms of meditation are equally important for mood regulation. EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) is a technique utilized to help with trauma, high anxiety, and other experiences of distress (it has been found quite helpful in the military and has, in the last years, it has been used in the outpatient therapy setting).
Altering behavior is a core part of therapy. There are behaviors to learn how to discard (e.g. impulsive and destructive, emotional outbursts) and behaviors to aid in emotional regulation, (e.g. breathing skills, muscle relaxation, vagus nerve stimulation, intrusive thought skills, etc.) many more).
Positive psychology skills and tools are also emphasized in my practice. It is one thing to work on decreasing symptoms of distress and another (the positive psychology area) to work on skills to boost well-being. These skills are related to building gratitude, kindness, strengthening bonds with loved ones, improving a sense of flow, utilizing personal strengths, practicing contentment, and building optimism (among others).
Finally, the big picture for therapy (and beyond therapy) is to continue to build one’s sense of unconditional worth, purpose, values, and meaning in life. This truly yields a sense of having a life worth living.
Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about therapy within the practice.
