Services Provided

What is IFS?
What is CBT?
What is DBT?

As a licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in Connecticut and New York, I work with individual adults, children, teens, couples and families. The people I have worked with best describe anxiety, emotional dysregulation, stress, sadness, life transitions, separation, loss, and divorce. I have worked with many people who feel that life is missing something for them or feel that they struggle in relationships but don’t know why. With therapy my clients begin to develop and use positive life skills, change habits and become activated toward building a life with more joy and less self-judgment.  Client feedback include feeling understood, validated and supported in ways they have not previously experienced.  In my work with children, parents feel that I am both an advocate for their child but also a coach that supports them in the difficult work of parenting.

My therapeutic approach is eclectic allowing me to work with each client in the way that speaks to their specific needs. I like having a toolbox of interventions from my experience and training in a variety of therapeutic models. My approach integrates the mind/body connection and internal struggle often helped with IFS parts work and the mindfulness, emotional regulation, and interpersonal skills from the DBT model. Also, using the cognitive behavioral model, clients are often helped quickly by being able to look at how their thoughts affect their feelings and actions.

In my work with children, play therapy techniques and cognitive behavioral play are invaluable in helping to understand the child’s internal struggles while allowing each child a safe and validating space to relieve stress.

I have been formally trained in DBT and I encourage you to look at my website and learn more about this model. I offer a “DBT informed” skills groups to adults and hope to add teen groups. The requirement for this group, however, is a recommendation from your individual therapist. To do adherent DBT according to its founder Marsha Linehan and her company, Behavioral Tech, LLC, (http://behavioraltech.org) a client would be seeing a DBT therapist, be in a DBT skills group with 2 DBT trained therapists who attend a weekly supervisory / support group specifically for DBT. Since this is not always possible for clients or necessary for every client issue, in my private practice at this time, I am offering my skills to other local therapists who feel their clients can be helped by a DBT informed skills group. I do require that anyone in my group have an individual therapist who I may contact. If this is something you would like to pursue, please contact me or have your individual therapist contact me.

My colleague and I will also be offering a social skills group for children ages 7-10. We generally have between 4 and 8 children in a structured 10 week course. Again, please contact me if that is a group you would like to know more about.