Find a Therapist in Rancho Santa Margarita, California.

After 30 years as a practicing pschotherapist, I have learned effective ways that allow my clients to feel safe, empowered, and to heal in an invironment that is both confidential and respectful. I am a solution oriented therapist and while I feel that the past experiences do have an impact on who we are today, I believe the current experiences are much more telling and important. My clients are actively involved in their therapy goals and outcomes, as we work together to achieve healing, growth and change. There are many effective tools I introduce in therapy that can help in communication and assisting you with expressing feelings and emotiions more effectively.

Therapy is not a one size fits all experience. Though I extensively trained to understand specific theories of practice, I utilize a "prescriptive" approach. This means I will adapt to your needs in treatment. Therapy is co-created, it is relational, and it is in the therapeutic relationship where we seek personal growth to apply outside the therapy room. I work with adult individual clients who are grieving a significant loss, LGBTIQ+ adults, adults with creative blocks, neurodivergent adults, people pleasers, those recovering from trauma, and adults burnt out about their work.

I always tell my clients that I am an "Old School Psychotherapist." This means that I believe that the way we are raised, our parents, and our families create who we are as adults. This means that I do a deep dive with every single client. I learn about you. I learn about your past, your history, and your family relationships. We form a bond and this connection allows us to be a true team for your mental health. If you are looking for a long-term therapist, you are in the right place! Long-term therapy allows for long-term results. You come to therapy to learn about yourself and see your mood improve, and you will get there much faster with a therapist who is truly on your side. I am here.

My clients often find me easy to talk to and say they feel comfortable with me, trusting quickly. This can make the psychotherapeutic process easier and more effective for my clients, especially if they are nervous or don’t know what to expect. Therapy with me can range from just talking casually with each other, leading to insights, increased self awareness, and processing through emotional issues, or it could be more intensive deeper therapy like EMDR.

I work with an entire person--the mind, emotions, body, spirit, relationships. I offer an alternative approach to traditional psychotherapy because sometimes we are stuck beyond our thoughts. I believe we are often stuck beyond how we think about something, but by how our body holds and remembers the experiences. After all, we feel the anxiety in our chest, shoulders or stomach. When we are depressed, we struggle to move, sleep, concentrate etc. I work to remove the block from wherever it is stuck. My clients come to me after years of ineffective therapy. They are looking for more than talking about their struggles or identifying how they think about them in favor of a change in living.

Free 30 minute zoom call - Psychotherapy can be an incredibly powerful tool for improving many different areas of ones life. My style is warm, compassionate and my approach is holistic, pulling from man different and highly effective modalities. Clients can overcome depression, anxiety, difficult relationships, work issues, lack of self-esteem, grief, anger & so much more in psychotherapy. Understanding how to get from these challenges to a better place is no easy task. Utilizing the education & experience of a therapist can help you understand what happened in your childhood that's affecting you now, how your brain got wired, how you can develop skills & tools to support growth and healing

Are you grappling with life, relationship, or work issues? When these issues begin to cause you a great deal of worry or pain, it’s good to find someone to talk to. My focus is on guiding you in learning more constructive ways to deal with the problems in your life. When helping you through this difficult period my approach is supportive, caring, and infused with humor. I assist you in building insights and a skill set that can be applied to a multitude of life stressors.When you become aware of how you move through your world, you can begin to gently guide yourself in a new direction. I look forward to facilitating this process. Please ring 949.370.4726 or e-mail info@southoccounseling.com.