I
have over 14 years of experience providing mental health therapy to
individual adults, couples, teenagers, and families. I also have supervised
MSW’s and MA’s toward licensure.
Click from the list below to learn more about my training and experience helping clients with the following issues:
Couples and cross-cultural relationships
Latino cultural and immigration issues
Please see my resume for more information about my professional experience.
Most couples at one time or another encounter a challenging crossroads or decision-point in their lives together, such as: contemplating whether to make a deeper, lasting commitment to one another; negotiating about having children; becoming parents; changing careers; returning to school/work; coping with an affair; remarrying after divorce; blending families together from previous marriages; or simply experiencing increasing distance or conflict that threatens to break apart their lives together as a couple.
At these moments, couples can benefit from a therapist with relational training and experience, who is able to help them remember their core values and dreams, and to speak honestly and openly about what each of them needs in the next phase in their relationship and in their individual lives.
Current research findings demonstrate the effectiveness of couples counseling, especially when couples learn to attend more to their daily friendship, patterns of intimacy, and ways of supporting one another during times of stress and transition.
Couples where each partner comes from a different cultural, language and/or national background face unique challenges of their own. Their ways of accomplishing goals and expressing their needs may be vastly different, leading to misunderstandings and conflicts. It is common to feel anxious or frustrated by the perception that their partner doesn’t truly understand them because they come from another culture. With counseling geared toward recognizing differences related to culture, family backgrounds and individual personality styles, couples can learn to compliment each other and take advantage of their differences in order to strengthen their relationship and develop a greater flexibility when negotiating conflicts and making decisions.
Helping our children develop the core values that we cherish from our own traditions as a foundation, and learn the necessary skills and good judgment to become successful youth and adults, requires a tremendous commitment of energy and time. Most parents experience worries, doubts or outright conflicts about how to guide their children at one time or another throughout the parenting journey.
We are advised to stay involved and connected with our kids and their activities as they become more independent. Yet, pre-teens and teenagers are often fiercely private about their daily lives. The urgency to connect with our youth increases when: they have problems or conflicts related to their peers; when parents are separating or divorcing; when academic, behavioral, or alcohol/drug abuse problems arise; and when teens become sexually active or question their sexual identity. Teens also can experience episodes of depression and anxiety, which may be difficult to distinguish from their age-related moodiness.
I work with youth, ages 12 and up, and their families in order to give them the support and guidance they need to get back on track, restore important family connections and help parents and youth make healthy, safe choices in regards to the difficulties they are facing.
Many of us are taking more personal responsibility for our health and well-being, rather than simply relying on infrequent visits to our physician when we are ill in order to ask for the advice that we need. We are utilizing health, nutrition and exercise literature and classes in order to better understand how we can make lifestyle changes that will improve our health.
Along with taking a greater interest in how we can better understand and maintain our health, we are recognizing the mind-body connection between our physical health and our emotional well-being. The effects of stress, anxiety and depression are irrefutable. The question arises, what additional relaxation, mindfulness and self-care strategies are we going to incorporate into our daily lives? The stakes are even higher if we are facing a specific medical diagnosis that preoccupies our daily life, causes chronic pain, and drains us of energy or hope.
Counseling that offers a rich array of possible self-care practices suited to each individual’s unique needs and abilities can help fortify the resources we have for coping with health problems or concerns, and can help shift us to a more empowered and hopeful outlook. In addition, sessions that include family members can enhance the support they offer us, and help them to cope better with how illness affects everyone in the family.
Depression and anxiety are a significant reason why many individuals seek counseling. Genetic, early childhood and later-life experiences all play a role in how mood and anxiety difficulties may affect us. While there have been tremendous strides in the last decade in understanding how centers in the brain regulate emotions and moods, and respond to chronic stress and anxiety, once these neurological patterns are established, depression or anxiety can last long after the situational factors that led to the initial difficulty have passed.
By looking holistically at the physical, emotional, relational and spiritual aspects of depression and anxiety, we have the opportunity to identify and resolve past losses, change self-defeating habits, establish new patterns of thinking, behaving, and relating to significant others, and to benefit from medications as appropriate. Between all of these strategies, there is a blend of approaches that suits the needs of each unique person.
Between losing what we had and embracing something new is a period of being “lost.” Every life transition or experience of loss and grief involves the experience of emptiness, uncertainty, and ambivalence about “what to do now” with our life. This period of transition or grief often challenges our ability to cope with our daily life as well as maintaining our long-term goals. When we can allow our feelings of being lost to exist without judgment or pressure to “move on with our life,” we are more able to move through grief and change, in order to find our way to a new beginning.
Any kind of traumatic event, ranging from a car accident, a one-time assault, or a history of emotional, physical or sexual abuse can generate posttraumatic stress (PTSD), causing symptoms such as: distressing memories that intrude into daily life; debilitating anxiety and fear, and avoidance of situations that remind individuals of the past trauma. Many people struggle as well with self-blame or irrational anger toward themselves and loved ones who may have had nothing to do with the original trauma.
Healing from trauma is a courageous act of faith in oneself and others. As a therapist, it is my job to assist clients in facing and overcoming the negative emotions, thoughts, habits, and relationship problems that have arisen out of reactions to past trauma. Sometimes that means focusing on improving the present moment, and other times facing “ghosts” from the past: always within a therapeutic environment that is safe and honoring of each individual’s unique journey toward healing.
Latino cultural and immigration issues
As a non-native Spanish speaker, I have traveled, studied and lived in several parts of Mexico and in Ecuador in order to better understand Latin American cultures and the complex issues surrounding immigration to the United States. I am married to a Mexican citizen, and we are raising our children to be both bicultural and bilingual, which further connects me to Latino culture and the Spanish language. For over five years, I have worked as a counselor with monolingual Spanish-speaking adults, couples and families in medical clinics, mental health centers, and private practice. I am a member of REDES, a mental health association whose members are committed to serving Latinos in the Portland metro area. Currently, I provide counseling and immigration evaluations to Spanish-speakers and bilingual Latinos in my practice.
Sexual minorities continue to face double standards and discrimination in many aspects of their lives. Individuals who are questioning their sexual orientation need a safe and knowledgeable person with whom they can sort out their uncertain feelings and issues. Individuals and couples who are clear about their orientation, but who have other issues to address in therapy often prefer to work with a therapist who has knowledge and experience with the GLBT community so that they won’t have to educate their therapist or answer questions about that area of their life. My experience and commitment to working with sexual minority clients benefits individuals and families seeking a GLBT-knowledgeable therapist.
Individuals suffering from alcohol or drug abuse and their families can benefit from counseling in order to address the ways that addiction is undermining them, to identify what needs to change, and to create a supportive recovery environment. New strategies for managing stress, anxiety, depression and negative emotions can be developed so that the physical and psychological reliance on substances can be overcome. When needed, I refer individuals and families to more intensive outpatient and residential chemical dependency treatment programs until they are more stable and able to take advantage of counseling.
Having worked with domestic violence survivors in shelters and support groups, and with offenders willing to get help and change their abusive behavior, I have learned that while there are definite patterns to the “cycle of abuse,” there are also considerable differences in these patterns depending on the couple or family. I prefer to evaluate each individual or family’s unique history of abuse and violence in their lives in order to determine the level and type of intervention that is most likely to help them be safe and stop the cycle of abuse.
I often work with individuals who are contemplating whether to leave an abusive relationship or who have left and are trying to heal. I also work with individuals who have been abusive to their partners and want to stop their behavior and lead healthier, happier lives.
I do not work jointly with couples who have had incidences of physical violence in the recent past, or when the survivor is intimidated or afraid of his or her partner, as this is counterproductive and potentially dangerous. In these cases, I refer each individual to their own therapy or intervention groups prior to engaging in couple or family therapy.