My name is Stephanie and I have been in the field for the past 23 years helping many people such as yourself. I welcome the opportunity to see if we can collaborate to help steer your life in a better direction. I view this work as sacred and strive to hold a space where you can be assured you will be accepted, cared for genuinely, and at times gently challenged. I believe the most important part of therapy is the relationship. So much healing takes place from truly being heard, understood, seen and safe. In order for their to be healing, transparency needs to take place and in order for transparency, trust is essential. Trust must be earned and built over repeated, positive experiences with someone.
I graduated from Oswego State with my BA in Communications with a Public Relations concentration and a minor in Health Science. I took many Psychology courses as well. I graduated from Robert’s Wesleyan with my MSW with a concentration in Mental Health.
I have extensive experience working with clients with a range of mental health issues in several settings, in patient/out patient mental health and chemical dependency as well as partial hospitalization and medical floors/ED in the hospital. I have worked on a crisis team that fields emergency calls in the community.
I enjoy working with parents and children, teens, elderly and everyone in between. I am familiar with many systems such as foster care, family/divorce courts, services for the elderly and those caring for them. I worked for several years counseling clients with TBI’s as well as assisting as ILST and SC. I also have extensive knowledge of eating disorders.
One thing I have come to realize in my years in the field is that most people have been exposed to some or several types of trauma. Depending upon when, what if anything was offered in terms of help at the time, and if more traumas did not compound the original one, many people carry these wounds for many years. People carry them not just in their minds and hearts but also in their bodies especially if they happened at an early age where the injured person lacked the capacity or vocabulary to process what was happening to them verbally.
The medical community has come to recognize in the past decade or so that the root cause of many illnesses are related to stress and fear/anxiety which stem from unprocessed traumas/emotions. I have worked with many clients who have needed help and relief from past trauma but not just telling it to another person, actually dealing with it so they can live more freely. Developmental trauma or complex trauma can take a bit longer since it is multi tiered/layered.
Once you learn the tools and do some of the processing you are able to continue the work. I have helped many clients deal with and address attachment issues, codependency, grief/loss, various addictions, anger, identity, adjustment to several areas, sexual abuse/assault-both male and female victims, reinventing themselves, parenting, elder care, childhood abuse/neglect to name a few.
I work from a strengths based, supportive, client centered stance that utilizes several approaches that are interwoven into the fabric of our work. Some of the approaches drawn from include: Insight Oriented, Gestalt, CBT, Developmental Psychology, Ego and parts work, DBT, Freudian, Solution Focused, Somantic, and Motivational Interviewing and some threds of psychanalysis which includes dream work and interpretive work.
For those who wish, I can tailor the work to include faith based therapy. Are you disillusioned with your faith? Do you have “church hurt”? Where does one go when the very people who are supposed to represent GOD do not act the part? Did clergy traumatize, abuse or misuse their power? Have you been told repeatedly by spiritual authority to submit to an abusive spouse? Do you need a place and space to “share your story” that is safe to make sense of it?
I have met so many like you over the years. If that is you, please come and talk. You will be glad you did! Healing is waiting.