My therapeutic philosophy is deeply aligned with the vision, mission, and core values of LEAPS: Leadership, Empowerment, Achievement, Purpose, and Success. As an eclectic and integrated practitioner, my therapeutic choices are contextually driven, embracing interdisciplinary and trauma-focused approaches tailored to the needs of each client.
At the heart of my therapeutic philosophy is a commitment to understanding how childhood, adolescent, and adult trauma shape individual identity, personal worldview, and relationship dynamics. I explore how traumatic experiences impact the human self and influence intimate partner relationships, marriages, families, and professional environments.
My trauma-focused therapy extends beyond individual healing. It addresses how trauma affects group dynamics, family systems, and broader communities. This holistic approach integrates trauma-informed practices designed to build resilience, foster emotional safety, and create healthier, more supportive relationships at every level—individual, couple, family, and community.
Through a combination of psychoeducational tools, clinical assessments, and compassionate counseling, my goal is to empower clients to heal, grow, and achieve long-term success in both their personal and professional lives.
Trauma-focused Psychotherapy
My trauma-focused psychotherapeutic approach focuses on treatment interventions associated with individuals’ traumatic experiences with a view of restoring their mental, behavioral, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. It recognizes the correlations between individual’s trauma and their unique responses. My philosophy aims to help develop meaningful coping strategies and skills overcome their previous trauma experiences.
Philosophical Core Principles:
1
The goals of trauma-focused therapy are to reduce trauma-related symptoms. Help clients manage anxiety, fear, and other manufactured trauma-related symptoms such as shame. To improve and manage emotional regulation. To assist clients in developing healthier coping mechanisms, enhance self-esteem, self-worth and sustainable resilience needed to achieve healing, recovery and transformation.
2
Trauma-focused therapeutic approaches focus on understanding the impact of trauma, specifically recognizing the family systems of trauma namely: individuals, families, and even entire systems. Achieving an effective conceptual understanding of the connection between trauma and diverse trauma responses. The recognition that trauma can result in various emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms.
3
Creating a safe and supportive environment, buttressed on both trauma-informed care and trauma-focused treatment interventions. An intentional approach that engenders solid rapport building and strong therapeutic alliances. Systematically implementing trauma techniques that give primary focus to avoiding re-traumatization through unnecessary exposure to potential triggers.
4
Promoting effective healing and recovery of trauma recovery through strategically developed coping strategies including symptomology management and emotional regulation. Through meaning-making techniques, clients develop healthier understanding of their unique trauma experiences through imaginal exposure, cognitive processing, or other techniques.
Trauma-informed Christian Worldview
Key Philosophical Considerations
For the spiritually minded, I also offer a faith-based approach in my integrated therapy approach. This approach combines diverse therapeutic techniques with an individual’s spiritual or religious beliefs. Peer-reviewed clinical research has increasingly recognized that faith can be a powerful resource for healing and well-being.
Conceptual Components:
Integrated faith-based therapy incorporates both religious and spiritual foundation beliefs, tenets and practices into an individual’s mental and emotional well-being. Faith becomes an underpinning element of the overall therapeutic process.
How it works:
The Christian approach can inform practice by using The Bible or other relevant religious texts, incorporating prayer, mindfulness meditation and/or the exploring personal spiritual experiences. Research has supported the view that faith-based principles may be used as a source of complement mental issues such as stress, depression, anxiety and trauma.
Benefits:
Studies suggest that integrating faith into psychotherapy can be as effective, or even more effective, than secular treatments for religious clients. Specifically, individual, couples and familial faith may provide additional sources of hope, encouragement meaning, bonding and community, which are crucial for cognitive, emotional and physical healing.
Ethical considerations:
At LEAPS, we remain both cognizant and sensitive to EVERY client’s individual belief and practice and INTENTIONALLY avoid imposing ANY faith-based views on those who are not spiritually minded.
