In-Person or Virtual options available.
now accepting new Clients
(503) 841-2142
In-person or Virtual Options are Available | Now Accepting New Clients
(503) 841-2142
Individual & Career Counseling:
$85.00–95.00/ Session
Payment is required at the beginning of each session, unless special arrangements are made in advance.
Counseling Rates
- Work through tough life concerns
- Deal with anxieties, fears, and phobias
- Reduce feelings of sadness
- Conquer traumatic experiences
- Discover self, career, values, and joys
Counseling provides you an opportunity to:
Mental Health Counseling or Individual Counseling is a type of psychotherapy where an individual works one-on-one with a counselor to resolve past, present, and future concerns.
My office is located in Tigard, and I serve clients in the surrounding areas on a variety of life challenges.
SERVING CLIENTS IN THE TIGARD, WASHINGTON COUNTY, AND PORTLAND AREA
Individual Counseling
Cancellations must be made 24-48 hours in advance to avoid full charges.
Cancellation Policy
Clients wishing to use their insurance will be provided a Statement of Service so they may bill their insurance company directly. Please note the reimbursable amount is set by the insurance company.
Insurance
If you have additional questions, visit my Contact Page to learn more.
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Credit Card, Cash, Check, Apple Pay, and Health Savings Card
Payment Forms
Typical session length is 50 minutes. Pillars of Hope Counseling also offers 90 minute sessions for couples who may need longer times. Family sessions are 90 minutes.
Rates
Many clients find the breathing, mindfulness, and guided imagery exercises taught in session helpful because it gives them control over their worries.
It allows them to quiet racing thoughts thus focusing on what is in their control. It gives them power to review, think, and act.
Anxiety is a future mood state. Many times, a person worry needlessly about an event or activity that will happen down the road.
A little anxiety can increase performance but when it becomes difficult and tiring it affects every aspect of your life. Individual counseling helps reduce anxiety because it provides skills.
Anxiety
It also makes it hard to focus on work, or enjoy favorite hobbies. In a safe, caring, and compassionate environment, will identify and explore depression triggers. Together will create coping strategies to manage depression symptoms.
Individual counseling also helps with depression. At some point in an individual’s life, they will experience sadness or depression. This feeling can be brought on by the death of a loved one or just feeling stuck.
That makes everyday activities, such as getting out of bed or engaging with family and friends difficult.
Depression
Anger itself is not positive or negative, good or bad. It is simply an emotion. The behaviors we do when we are angry may need to be modified.
- Intense yelling or screaming
- Throwing objects
- Becoming threatening or physically violent
- Excessive cursing, swearing, or using bad language
- Unwilling to compromise with partner
- Chronic irritability
- Short-temperedness
- Racing heartbeat
- Shakiness and sweating
- Pacing
- Looking to someone or something to blame
- Judging or criticizing people
- Wanting to self-medicate with other substances
Common Symptoms of Anger Disorder
Does standing in long lines or slow traffic send you through the roof? Want to kick, hit, or punch an inanimate object? Do people walk on eggshells when you are around?
Anger control issues or disorders refers to the inability to constructively handle the emotion of anger. It becomes intense, out-of-proportion, lasts too long, and is inappropriate for the circumstance. This type of behavior quickly spirals out-of-control and can cause damage in relationships. Romantic partners leave and jobs can be lost due to what is said or done in the heat of the moment.
Losing one’s temper once in a while does not mean there are anger issues. When anger interferes in personal and professional relationships to the point of creating harm or fear, we are dealing with an anger control issue or an anger management disorder.
Anger Management
Seeking help for anger is courageous. To learn more or start the process, click here to request an appointment, email me here, or text or call directly at 503-841-2142.
Next Steps
Constructive anger is a thoughtful and careful response to resolve an issue, such as motorists running a stop sign in a residential street.
Becoming angry over the situation and talking with the city to install a speed bump to reduce the number of stop signs is an example of constructive anger.
Yelling, screaming, cursing, and hurling bodily threats at motorists as they drive by is destructive anger and would suggest the need for anger management training.
Constructive Anger
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The good news is that all behavior is learned, which means it can be unlearned and new behaviors can be learned. Numerous interventions are taught. Using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques. Individuals learn to identify unhealthy thinking styles, and remove false beliefs regarding the event or situation.
Learning how to recognize the emotional and physiological warning signs of anger reduces aggressive outbursts. Assertive communication and basic conflict management techniques replace out-of-control behaviors, such as yelling and throwing objects. Applying mindfulness and relaxation techniques creates calm and rational conversations instead of arguements.
Anger Management Treatment
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This disorder is marked with sudden, explosive bursts of rage. It is an impulse control disorder. Individuals exhibiting IED are highly irritable, hostile, and lash out in anger without cause.
People suffering with IED may experience an inability to vocalize their feelings. Unable to control their emotions. May harm objects, animals, or people. This anger management disorder often began when the individual was in their teens. It can be controlled through psychotherapy.
Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED)
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- Sorrow feels like a constant stabbing pain
- Thoughts directed only on the loss of the loved one
- Intense longing for the return of the deceased person
- Bitterness, numbness, or detachment regarding the loss
- Feel responsible or blaming self
- Anger towards the deceased person
- Thinking they did not do enough to prevent the death
- Avoiding places, events, or circumstances that are reminders of the deceased individual
Common Symptoms of Grief
Are you feeling intense and prolonged grief over the loss of a loved one? Do normal routines feel difficult or hard?
Coping with the loss of a family member can be difficult and distressing. Most people feel sorrow, loss, pain, and numbness. These generally subside after a number of weeks. Many bereaved individuals develop complicated or prolonged grief, where the above symptoms are so intense, they cannot function.
Prolonged grief affects every aspect of life and can easily spiral into depression. An individual may find it hard to accept the loss of a loved one when it was sudden or unexpected.
Grief Counseling
Seeking help for grief takes courage and strength. To learn more or start the process, request an appointment, email me, or text or call directly at 503-841-2142.
Next Steps
Denial is the first stage. The individual cannot believe the person is gone. They are in shock and often feel numb.
They want it to be a dream or a bad joke. In this stage an individual begins to cope with the knowledge they will not see this person again.
Denial
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Anger is the second stage. It is ok to be angry that the loved one was taken from and to be upset with the doctors.
An untimely or unexpected death may prompt others to take stock of their life and make changes with their own health.
Anger
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Depression
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Depression is the fourth stage. It is marked with a deep sense of sadness and loss. Feeling loneliness and often helpless.
An individual may even feel guilt that they did not do enough to save their loved one. They are unable to do basic life tasks, work, or engage with family and friends.
Acceptance is the final stage. This is when the individual understands that they can no longer see, touch, or hear their loved one but know they are always in their heart. Peace replaces feelings of anger.
Acceptance
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It is important to understand grief stages are not linear. A person can move from denial to acceptance than back to anger without ever going through the bargaining stage. Depression can happen anytime throughout the grieving process.
Therapy can help identify emotions and provide tools to help individuals better cope with your loss.
- Sadness
- Anger
- Fear
- Nightmares
- Flashbacks
- Headaches
- Nausea
- Dizziness
- Inability to sleep or stay asleep
- Outbursts (anger or crying)
- Difficulty with relationships
- Signs of trauma are both physical and mental
Common Symptoms of Trauma
Are harmful events replaying frequently in your mind? An individual doesn't want to go to specific places because they are associated with bad memories? Trauma can cause such thoughts and reactions.
Trauma Counseling Services
What is trauma?
An upsetting event that causes long-term and harmful effects upon a person’s physical and mental well-being is known as trauma. Trauma can take many forms. It can be staying away from a certain place to reliving the experience as if it were happening right now.
Trauma causes feelings of helplessness, weakens a sense of being, and reduces the ability to feel emotions. Immediate emotions of trauma include shock and denial. Not dealing with the trauma could lead to anxiety or depression because feelings are being blocked. Trauma therapy and counseling can help indviduals reduce symptoms and begin living a healthy life.
Types of Trauma
Deciding to face long standing trauma is a heroic thing to do. To learn more or start the process, request an appointment, email me, or text or call directly at 503-841-2142.
Next Steps
Coming from one single event, such as being in a car accident.
Acute
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Occurring many times, such as domestic abuse.
Chronic
Being exposed to a series of difficult personal situations, such as car accident, being robbed, and being fired. This happens in a specific time frame or place.
Complex
It is natural to feel fear during and after the event. When these symptoms continue for at least one month after and happen daily, a trained therapist can help reduce the concern. It takes time to improve the quality of life and relationships. All the symptoms may never go completely away but individuals will learn coping skills to find pleasure in everyday activities that before were struggles.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
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People with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder May Experience:
- Relive the event
- Stay away from places that remind them of the event
- Experience irritation
- Have trouble sleeping
- Have trouble remembering key points about the event
- Take on a high level of guilt
- Express strong negative feelings about the event
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a specific type of trauma that develops in some people after experiencing a scary or dangerous event. Studies indicate that women are more likely to develop PTSD.
Focuses on awareness of thoughts and beliefs. CBT focuses on changing negative thought patterns by turning them into positive thought patterns. Knowing what beliefs about the event or situation allows the therapist to help individuals reframe the event in a healthy way, thus helping individuals reduce anxious feelings about the trauma. Often times people coping with trauma feel like everyone sees them as a victim who can’t manage their emotions. CBT helps trauma survivors leave the traumatic concern in the past and live in the present. For more info on CBT check out The Center for Treatment of Anxiety and Mood Disorders.
Trauma therapy
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Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Several forms of therapy have helped people. Trauma therapy seeks out ways to help a person feel whole and in control again. Below are three of the most common types of trauma therapy.
Separates the person from the issue. It helps to see the concern differently because it allows for different stories to be told and received. Some tools include journaling and letter writing. When a letter is written to the situation or abuser, the individual becomes stronger because the abuser becomes powerless. For more information about narrative therapy check out this link.
Narrative Therapy
This tool helps people identify triggers connected to the event. Once the triggers are known, an individual slowly begins to face the fears. An example of this tool occurs when a client who was hit at a specific street corner, in session with the therapist, pictures the street corner. When they are able to do this with little fear, they would visit the street corner. Lastly, they would drive through the street corner. Learn more about exposure therapy review.
Exposure Therapy
Short-term therapy lasts for a few sessions and is usually done right after the traumatic event. It helps people get over the initial shock of the situation.
Kinds of Trauma counseling
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Short-term Therapy
Long-term therapy could last several years and generally involves rewriting the narrative of the situation and framing it into a less scary event.
Long-term Therapy
- Explore interest and skills through self-directed assessments
- Utilize various card sorts to evaluate various occupations
- Research education and schools
- Process obstacles
- Create coping strategies
- Develop job search strategies
- Discuss several types of resume formats and determine best fit
- Practice interviewing for various jobs through role play exercises
- Develop one, three, and five-year career paths
- Discover career passion
Benefits to Career Counseling
Do Monday morning work routines feel stressful? Feel drained, unappreciated, and burned out? Most people switch careers, not jobs, 3 to 5 times in their working life.
Career Counseling is an opportunity to clarify, explore, and develop a career identity. Gain personal insight into jobs, education, and career paths that match a person’s values, interests, and skills.
Career Counseling Services
Explore Your Possibilities
Whether just entering the world of work or looking to make a mid-career change, career counseling can help bring focus and set a new career path. Career Counseling assesses current aptitudes, values, and interests. It breaks down fears, realizes self-value, and develops goal maps to help find career satisfaction.
Your career is one part of developing a balanced life. Life satisfaction is derived when all of life areas are harmonious. Counseling helps create a lifestyle to meet all needs.
Phases of Career Counseling
Deciding to switch careers is a daring thing to do. To learn more or start the process, request an appointment, email me, or text or call directly at 503-841-2142.
Next Steps
Identifying obstacles to interviewing. It involves role playing to prepare for job interviews. Learn to ask for compensation and benefits that are in alignment with education and experience.
Phase 3
Matching personal values to company values. It’s important to understand how personal values, such as integrity, aligns with the company’s mission. A mismatch of values can create stress and mental anguish as an individual tries to conform to values that are outside of their comfort zone.
Phase 2
Entails finding passion. This is done by taking career assessments, card sorts, talking about past jobs/duties, likes, dislikes, and interests for study.
