SERVICES

INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING

COUPLES COUNSELING

PARENTING COUNSELING

SENSORY TREATMENT FOR CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

SERVICES AVAILABLE IN

ENGLISH

SPANISH

PORTUGUESE

INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING

Individuals may struggle with different stages of life, transitions, traumatic experiences, sexual and relationship issues, and chronic health conditions. For more than three decades, I have helped adults and adolescents to manage changes and achieve the quality of mental health they are seeking. I have experience helping individuals with a wide range of psychological issues including anxiety, depression, and personality disorders; adjustment to disabilities; grieving for a loved one; life transitions; acculturation; and relationship and sexuality issues. I use an eclectic approach focused on the individual’s psychodynamics, childhood attachments and experience, and social and cultural background. I apply Somatic Experiencing techniques - SE - for healing trauma and general mental health issues.

CHRONIC HEALTH CONDITIONS

Chronic health conditions may challenge individuals’ belief in their ability to change. They may face psychological reactions such as shock of diagnosis, denial, anxiety, and depression — until they adjust to the chronic health condition. My approach focuses on creating a supportive environment to evoke individuals’ choices and motivations to make behavior changes in order to improve their ability to manage chronic health conditions.

COUPLES COUNSELING

I believe that love makes relationship worthwhile

My psychotherapeutic approach with couples is based on Somatic Experiencing, Systemic Family Therapy, and Collaborative Couple Therapy.

From these perspectives, therapy is an exploratory context of possible changes, in which the psychotherapist creates a state of curiosity about the family’s belief system and the construction of what is meaningful for the family members. In my therapeutic role, I take into consideration each partner’s value system — including values brought from their family of origin.

In Collaborative Couple Therapy, we see that couples feel alone in their experience and struggle to express their heartfelt feelings. My role is to help couples turn angry or defensive comments into a collaborative conversation.

I believe that the family system can change when a dialog is possible and both partners can listen to each other’s perspective. From a Somatic Experiencing perspective, my role is to facilitate the dialogue between the different "voices" of the system — providing a space for couples to regulate their emotions, enabling them to shift from fighting and withdrawing to having a loving intimate conversation.

SENSORY TREATMENT FOR CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

As a Licensed Professional Counselor, I provide a somatic treatment for children on the autism spectrum, ages 2-12. This treatment — Qigong Sensory Treatment (QST) massage — is primarily delivered by the child’s parents. I train parents to deliver an attuned massage, model the treatment, and monitor both the delivery of the QST massage and the child’s progress.

Abnormal sensory responses are included as core diagnostic symptoms of autism spectrum disorder in the the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5).

Research shows that touch is the sense that is most involved in social development, and tactile abnormalities present in young children with autism are severe and directly related to delay of early self-regulation milestones required for social development.

Research also shows that parent touch is the most effective stimulation to help decrease tactile abnormalities in young children with autism. Attuned parental touch may stimulate the earlier self-regulation milestones by repeatedly activating parasympathetic nervous system functions.

The research-based parent-delivered Qigong Sensory Treatment massage (QST Massage) was developed to treat the tactile abnormalities in young children with autism to improve self-regulatory functions from early development age in order to prepare them to achieve social developmental skills.

I participated in a successful study with 150 children with autism that showed the efficacy of this technique.

For more information visit Autism Treatment Center.