Path to Conscious Living, LLC English & Spanish Counseling Services

Are you feeling sad, lonely, confused, or overwhelmed? Are you having problems in your relationship or with your children? Do you feel stuck and don’t know how to change things? If you are suffering from emotional pain or relationship problems in any area of your life, I can help you. You may feel stuck and out of choices, but you don’t have to live with your pain for the rest of your life. I offer a safe, private and comfortable environment where a meaningful and effective therapeutic process can develop. Together we will explore the causes of your pain and work toward not only relief of pain, but greater happiness and fulfillment in your life. If you are seeking therapy for individual issues, we can partner together to better understand and resolve challenges that will allow you to establish more meaningful and fulfilling relationships. We can work together to make things better.

My personal counseling style is warm, interactive and directive. I strive to develop a trusting and accepting atmosphere where my clients can relax and express their concerns freely. Through the relationship I build with my clients, I guide them to an understanding of the cause for their thoughts and feelings. I take the time to understand each client in order to tailor their treatment to their unique circumstances. In my practice, I thoroughly believe that a connection between therapist and client is the foundation for healing and change. It is an honor to provide the services that I do. My goal is to facilitate a nonjudgmental safe place for healing.

I am fluent in both English and my native Spanish & I work with adults. If you feel it is the right time for change, I hope to assist you on your path to growth and self-discovery.

I am certified by the National Board of Certified Counselors and I am a Member of the Southeast Brainspotting Institute.

Anxiety
Anger
Behavioral Issues
Bipolar Disorder
Codependency
Coping Skills
Depression
Divorce
Emotional Disturbance
Family Conflict

Grief/Loss
Impulsivity
Life Transitions
Parenting
Peer Relationships
Sadness/Depression
Self-Esteem
Self-Harming
Stress
Trauma/PTSD

People seek the skills of a therapist when they are overwhelmed with life’s challenges. As a psychotherapist and third party, I strive to help clients learn healthy communication techniques, and accept responsibility for their roles in their relationships, in turn encouraging love and respect to grow within the family system. I employ a psychodynamic and insight-oriented approach informed by cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness-based stress reduction principles. Specifically, my technique is informed by:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Cognitive-behavioral therapy is an action-oriented form of psychosocial therapy that assumes that faulty thinking patterns cause problematic behavior and “negative” emotions. The treatment focuses on changing an individual’s thoughts in order to change his/her behavior and emotional state.

Psychodynamic Therapy: This approach stresses the importance of the unconscious and past experience in shaping current behavior. You are encouraged to talk about childhood relationships with parents and other significant people and the therapist focuses on the client/therapist relationship (the dynamics) and in particular on the transference. Transference is when the client projects onto the therapist feelings experienced in previous significant relationships. The Psychodynamic approach is derived from Psychoanalysis but usually provides a quicker solution to emotional problems.

Mindfulness Practice: Mindfulness is a specific way of intentionally paying attention. One negative thought can lead to a chain reaction of negative thoughts. This approach encourages people to be aware of each thought, enabling the first negative thought to be ‘caught’ so that it is seen as just a ‘thought’ and not a fact. This breaks the chain reaction of negative thoughts giving a mental ‘space’ in which the person can re-center themselves in the present. Mindfulness-based practices are generally integrated into other modalities.

Brainspotting: Brainspotting locates points in the client’s visual field that help to access unprocessed trauma in the subcortical brain. Brainspotting (BSP) was discovered in 2003 by David Grand, Ph.D. Over 30,000 therapists have been trained in BSP. Dr. Grand coined the term “Where you look affects how you feel”, in his attempt to explain how Brainspotting works. During the formation of BSP, Dr. Grand utilized a method called “The Grand System” which included aspects of a variety of existing psychological and physiological treatments including: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Somatic Experiencing, relational insight-oriented therapy and micro-movements.

Brainspotting works by allowing clients to engage in identifying, processing and releasing core neurophysiological sources of emotional and body pain, trauma, dissociation and various other symptoms. BSP is a simultaneous form of diagnosis and treatment.

Brainspotting functions as a neurobiological tool to support the clinical healing relationship. A mature, nurturing therapeutic presence is a necessary component of BSP. It is essential for Brainspotting clients to feel safe, heard, accepted and understood in order for them to process their neurophysiological sources of pain and trauma. As David Grand, Ph.D. has stated, Brainspotting is unlike other treatment modalities, as it is “both relational as well as technical with philosophical and physiological underpinnings. It is an open, inclusive model that invites therapists to make use of their prior trainings and practice wisdom.”

“Brainspotting gives us a tool, within this clinical relationship, to neurobiologically locate, focus, process, and release experiences and symptoms that are typically out of reach of the conscious mind and its cognitive and language capacity.”
— Dr. David Grand

While technique is important, it is my belief that the relationship between therapist and client is far more important than which particular theoretical model is being employed. I believe in everyone’s inherent ability to change and grow; psychotherapy provides a unique opportunity to more fully realize one’s potential.

I consider all my clients to be more than just a name or an appointment. Therapy is meant to be a completely individual experience, and I treat it as such, with deep compassion and absolutely no judgment. Not only do I want to provide support and encouragement for each of my clients, but it is my goal to offer them practical resources that they can put into practice immediately in their lives. Everyone can achieve more personal growth and strength, and it’s an honor to work on that together.