Services Offered

This page is not all encompassing. If you have an issue you're ready to address but don't see it below please reach out to me!

Individual Counseling

Call me biased, but I think everyone can benefit from individual counseling. Whether you're looking for a place to safely talk about daily life stress, looking to help your child improve their performance in school, feeling ready to tackle a traumatic event that continues to negatively affect you, or are looking for support to tackle the next life challenge I look forward to being there for you!

Lighting Lives Counseling offers services to those who'd like perinatal support, toddlers and children, teens, college students, as well as adults!

Just some of the things I can help you with:

Anything from the following list a concern of yours? You are not alone and help is available. Don't see what you're dealing with? Feel free to message me about it to see if this is a service I can add! (If it is not something I specialize in I would be more than happy to help you on the search for someone who does)

Suicide Prevention and Risk Management

Recently discharged from an inpatient psychiatric facility

Anxiety

Depression

Nutrition concerns

PTSD and other Responses to Trauma

School or Work stress

Communication issues

Addiction

Behavioral Difficulties

Complex family life

Poor sleep

Anger Management

Feeling stuck in life with no sense of purpose

Preparing for a big life change

My Approach

There's a reason why therapy is more effective than just venting to a friend! Here's a brief description of some of the evidence based models you can expect me to use while working with you.

My background is primarily in acute care settings where the time client's and I had available to work together towards a therapeutic goal was often very limited. As much as we have all the time in the world (in some ways) when it comes to outpatient therapy, I haven't been able to shake the "time is of the essence" mentality just yet. With that in mind many of the approaches I use focus heavily on achieving the goals YOU have set for us during our sessions in a fairly direct way. I want to make sure you're getting the most out of our time together and not leaving session feeling like nothing has changed from when you first started seeing me or that you don't do much more than vent in session (though some times we all need that time to just get it out so no judgment if we do use sessions just to vent every once and a while :) ).

I look to introduce new skills, ways of thinking, or tasks to try out each week so that you can continue working on things out in the real world- not just from the therapy couch; because at the end of the day that is where all of our efforts will matter most and I'm sure out in the world is where you want to feel better- Not just when in session with me.

Fictional scenario to further explain why I approach session this way: A man comes to see me because his wife has said she feels underappreciated and will leave him if things keep going the way they are. The man and I practice hundreds of communication skills together in individual therapy to help him better show how much he cares for his wife and he does wonderful in the various role-plays we do to help him better communicate his love for her. BUT he goes home and uses none of the skills and proceeds to yell at his wife for how bad dinner tastes and criticizes her poor cooking skills. How useful is therapy really to him? Realistically his wife is still going to feel underappreciated despite the wonderful work he's done in session. His knowledge of how to communicate his feelings of affection that he had learned in session amount to nothing if he doesn't then use the skills while talking with his wife.

It is with that in mind I emphasize the importance of practicing all things we discuss in session out in the real world to get the most out of treatment.

EMDR
(Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

An Evidence Based PTSD and Trauma Therapy that has been found helpful for other a number of additional disorders as well including anxiety, grief, chronic pain, and many more

Eye Movement Desensitization and reprocessing (commonly just referred to as EMDR) is an extensively research structured therapy that encourages the person in treatment to focus briefly on the trauma memory (or other sorts of distressing memories or thoughts) while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation, which is associated with a reduction in the vividness and emotion associated with the trauma memories. (This can sound like a huge intimidating task! But, my goal is for us to work together on whatever you feel comfortable addressing at the pace that feels most comfortable to you. We never have to get into anything you aren't ready to confront though people often times find that EMDR does bring them back to the memories most in need of processing so we will plan accordingly for any and everything that might come up.)

I am currently 'basic trained' in EMDR and working towards becoming a fully certified EMDR therapist. I have experience utilizing this modality with children as young as five to adults. The people I've had the honor of working with have come to me with a number of things they wish to seek help with ranging from anxiety to PTSD secondary to their experiences of human trafficking, sexual assault, domestic violence, and physical/emotional/sexual abuse from caregivers.

What is bilateral stimulation:

Bilateral stimulation can be administered in many different ways. As the name of this whole modality hints- it could be eye movements back and forth. However it could also be done with sounds in a pair of headphones, or physically tapping your own feet one at a time, tapping your shoulders/knees with your own hands, or other back and forth movements. Really it will come down to what 'stimulation' is the most comfortable to you during sessions.

Length of sessions:

Length of sessions will typically range from 45 minutes to an hour but we can discuss needs to shorten or lengthen this once we get to know one another.

How will I know I'm ready?

Deciding you're going to start tackling an event that has felt overwhelming to you for a long time can bring up many different emotions. It can be intimidating, scary, and all around anxiety provoking. I've heard people question if they can even consider the event that still impacts them most traumatic! Bottom line is- if you feel an event is negatively impacting your life, whether the event happened yesterday or whether it happened years ago I want to help! So when it comes down to "if you're ready" just ask yourself whether or not you're ready to learn new skills to help you cope with your event (whether others call it a trauma or not) and if the answer is yes, let's get started! Because despite all of those things I listed above about how it might feel to address these events it can also feel empowering, cathartic, and liberating to feel the weight of the event(s) finally dissipate.

I invite anyone who is interested in EMDR to follow the "Read More" button below to the official international EMDR website where they have more explanations about what EMDR is as well as introductory videos. If any questions remain please feel free to reach out via email to discuss.

Suicide Prevention, Self-Injurious Behaviors, and Risk Management

Suicidal ideations and self-injurious behaviors is not something I, or any clinician should take lightly. It is my goal to help you find insight into the causes for your suicidal thoughts or self-injury urges so that we find alternative ways to address them that won't put an end to your life.

While inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations are absolutely critical for people at acute risk, a hospital stay often does not mean a person is cured from their suicidal thoughts or self-injury urges. My goal is to use evidence based approaches to increase safety in your natural environment, help you better define how your support systems can be there for you in a time of need, develop a crisis response plan for when you begin to feel like self-harming or have thoughts of suicide, develop healthier coping skills for ongoing stress, and hopefully address anything else that has led to you feeling this way!

Some of the approaches I borrow from include:

The Stanley-Brown Safety Planning Intervention
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Suicide Prevention (CBT-SP)
Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS),

CBT
(Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy believes that our mood, emotions, and behaviors are often affected by our thoughts and the way we perceive events.
The example often used to explain CBT is if you're in a crowded mall and see a friend and wave, but they don't wave back, what do you think and how do you feel afterwards? Some people might shrug it off, assuming that the friend didn't see them, and go about having a good shopping trip. Others might view this interaction and become sad or even angry, they think their friend most definitely saw them and chose not to wave. The second way of viewing the interaction might lead to feelings of loneliness, cutting off the friend entirely, or an angry confrontation later on.
CBT helps us look at interactions like this, whether it causes depression, anxiety, anger or a slew of other emotions, and works to challenge the reality of our thoughts and replace negative, unhelpful thoughts, with more neutral thoughts that help us see life from a new perspective.