COUNSELING
CLIENT EXPERIENCE
I just wanted to say thank you. It is wonderful... for the first time in my life, I am seeing and feeling healing!!!!
Learn Heal Balance
CREATING YOUR BALANCE
This isn't passive listening, nod therapy. It’s a space to breathe, vent and complain freely (yay!). A place to learn how to feel your feels, process emotions, calm your nervous system, navigate stressors and choices. With curiosity and compassion, identify the source of your pain and symptoms.
A solid foundation to heal, detox shame, resolve limiting beliefs, grieve, recover from heartbreak, loss, abuse, self-abuse and trauma. Connect with your actual Self - your actual feelings and values, likes and dislikes, interests, desires and aspirations, boundaries and limits, relational wants and needs, and your purpose and career, choosing, being and creating your balance.
Treating the Root Cause of Symptoms and Patterns
Hi, I'm Athena
Rather than just talk therapy or passive listening, I actively engage in sessions, providing an empowering, psychoeducational, skills-building approach there is nothing wrong with you (or me, or any of us). You are not crazy, broken or irredeemable, regardless of how painful or dysfunctional the circumstances of your life have been. I believe that all parts of the human psyche are serving an adaptive and deeply logical function. My work is about helping people recognize how early adaptations shaped their lives, and guiding them toward living with greater awareness, choice, and self-trust.
Learn Skills and
Self-Awareness
Through sessions and 'homework' learn evidence-based skills to process emotions, calm your nervous system and identify the source of your symptoms. Embrace your uniqueness and strengths.
Heal Pain with
Self-Compassion
Be with your pain, process thoughts and feelings. Experience heal you can actually feel. Resolve maladaptive protective patterns (like people-pleasing, self-sabotaging, blaming, procrastinating, obsessing, self-berating, binging... etc.
Your Balance with
Self-Leadership
Build your capacity and reclaim your responsibility (power) to create your balance by realizing your wants and needs, and choosing and defining your worthiness (self-worth) based on how and what you want to be known and valued by your Self and others.
In Network Insurance
Treatment Expertise
Anxiety, OCD, Depression, PTSD
Emotional processing skills to heal and calm your nervous system.
Self-Worth, Self-Care
Evidence-based methods to increase your self-worth, self-care and self-trust.
Social and Relational Distress
Resolve patterns and communicate for trusting, enjoyable relationships.
Balanced
Self-Discipline
Gain self-leadership over choices, instead of binging or reacting to stress.
Your Values, Choices, College and Career
Align with your personal values, sense of purpose and career.
Maladaptive Coping Behaviors
Identify your Fight, Flight, Fawn, Freeze stress reactions to resolve.
CREATING YOUR BALANCE
Life Without Emotional Processing Skills is Painful
The latest neuropsychological research shows that most emotional and mental health conditions are due to a lack of social-emotional health skills and maladaptive coping behaviors.
Such as over-thinking, people-pleasing, perfectionism, sabotaging, obsessing, depressing, procrastinating, avoiding, blaming, binging, etc.
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Leads to Self-Criticism, Chronic Anxiety and Maladaptive Coping
To make matters worse, unprocessed feelings lead to berating ourselves without realizing it's the lack of awareness and skills that's to blame. We fall victim to the unawareness and powerlessness we have over our own emotions, thoughts and behaviors, grappling with shame, guilt, regret, anxiety, relational distress.
EMMA GRAY
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LORI BISHOP
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Benefits
At Aamorrs, we offer a range of benefits that set us apart:
Algorithm
Leverages your profile data to curate highly compatible matches, enhancing your dating success.
Video
Connect face-to-face with potential matches through seamless in-app video calling.
Verification
Ensures authenticity by offering a robust verification process, creating a trustworthy community.
Planner
Simplifies scheduling with a built-in planner to organize and suggest exciting date ideas.
Features
Life is a journey, and from time to time everyone struggles. No matter what issue you are facing, I can provide you a listening ear and a safe space to be completely yourself, and express yourself freely.
Learn and Practice
Get tailored recommendations based on your preferences and interests for a more meaningful connection.
Process and Heal
Enjoy peace of mind with our advanced security features ensuring safe and private communication.
Balance and Thrive
Easily navigate our sleek and intuitive design for a seamless dating experience.
Community
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Sustainability
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Integrity
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Counseling and EMDR Therapy
Compassionate, experienced, evidence-based therapy, along with a solution-focused, skills-building approach for your mental, emotional and relational well-being. Providing video sessions.
IMPROVE YOUR SELF. IMPROVE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS
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"I just wanted to say thank you. It is wonderful... for the first time in my life, I am seeing and feeling healing!!!!
Over 88% of us don't know how the emotional nervous system works, nor how to process emotions.
Although surprising, the latest neuropsychological research shows that most emotional and mental health conditions are due to a severe lack of social-emotional health skills and maladaptive coping behaviors and beliefs, such as over-thinking, people-pleasing, sabotaging, procrastinating, avoiding, blaming, over-indulging, etc.
Although surprising, the latest neuropsychological research shows that most emotional and mental health conditions are due to a severe lack of social-emotional health skills and maladaptive coping behaviors and beliefs, such as over-thinking, people-pleasing, sabotaging, procrastinating, avoiding, blaming, over-indulging, etc.
Over 88% of us don't know how the emotional nervous system works, nor how to process emotions.
To make matters worse, we berate ourselves without realizing it's the lack of awareness and skills that's to blame. We fall victim to the unawareness and powerlessness we have over our own emotions, thoughts and behaviors, grappling with shame, guilt, regret, anxiety, relational distress.
Although surprising, the latest neuropsychological research shows that most emotional and mental health conditions are due to a severe lack of social-emotional health skills and maladaptive coping behaviors and beliefs, such as over-thinking, people-pleasing, sabotaging, procrastinating, avoiding, blaming, over-indulging, etc.
Although surprising, the latest neuropsychological research shows that most emotional and mental health conditions are due to a severe lack of social-emotional health skills and maladaptive coping reactions and beliefs. The more stress, trauma, insecurities and painful feelings we face, the "better" we get at maladaptive coping! Such as people-pleasing, sabotaging, procrastinating, isolating, blaming, self-medicating with substances, food, binging, spending, etc.
To make matters worse, we berate ourselves without realizing it's the lack of awareness and skills that's to blame. We fall victim to the unawareness and powerlessness we have over our own emotions, thoughts and behaviors, grappling with shame, guilt, regret, anxiety, relational distress.
Mindful Living Program
Although surprising, the latest neuropsychological research shows that most emotional and mental health conditions are due to a severe lack of social-emotional health skills and maladaptive coping reactions and beliefs. Over 88% of us don't know how the emotional nervous system works, nor how to process emotions to align with our unique, genuine wants, needs, values sense of purpose and self-worth.
The Wellbeing Hub
To make matters worse, we berate ourselves without realizing it's the lack of awareness and skills to blame. We fall victim to the unawareness, false beliefs, and the sense of powerlessness we have over our own emotions, thoughts and behaviors, grappling with shame, guilt, regret, anxiety and painful relational distress and insecurities. All of which require healing.
Wellness Workshops
The more stress, trauma, relationship hurt and painful feelings we face, the "better" we get at maladaptive coping! Stuck in patterns of people-pleasing, sabotaging, procrastinating, isolating, blaming, self-medicating with substances, food, binging, spending, etc. Luckily with awareness and healing, we gain empowered self-leadership to balance maladaptive strategies into adaptive choices and responses.
Treat the Root Cause of Symptoms and Patterns
The latest research shows that most emotional and mental health conditions are due to a skill deficit and maladaptive coping reactions (to stress, insecurities and painful feelings). This includes people-pleasing, sabotaging, procrastinating, isolating, blaming, binging, etc. To make matters worse, we berate ourselves without realizing it's the severe lack of skills that's to blame.
Learn evidence-based nervous system calming, emotional processing and secure relating skills. Knowledge and practices proven to naturally boost serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin (the trio of 'feel good' neurochemicals) while resulting in self-trust, secure relationships, and a more fulfilling, balanced, empowered, healthier life overall.
Awareness
Although surprising, the latest neuropsychological research shows that most emotional and mental health conditions nowadays are due to a severe lack of social-emotional health skills and maladaptive coping reactions and beliefs. Over 88% of us don't know how the emotional nervous system works, nor how to process emotions to align with our unique, genuine wants, needs, values sense of purpose and self-worth.
Heal
To make matters worse, we berate ourselves without realizing it's the lack of awareness and skills to blame. We fall victim to the unawareness, false beliefs, and the sense of powerlessness we have over our own emotions, thoughts and behaviors, grappling with shame, guilt, regret, anxiety and painful relational distress and insecurities. All of which require healing.
Balance
The more stress, trauma, relationship hurt and painful feelings we face, the "better" we get at maladaptive coping! Stuck in patterns of people-pleasing, sabotaging, procrastinating, isolating, blaming, self-medicating with substances, food, binging, spending, etc. Luckily with awareness and healing, we gain empowered self-leadership to balance maladaptive strategies into adaptive choices and responses.
"Delivering the body from functioning as a storage room for suppressed emotions brings a sense of natural love and ease, a spaciousness, that we commonly call happiness."
Somesh Curti, PhD
Treat the Root Cause of Symptoms and Patterns
The latest research shows that most emotional and mental health conditions are due to a skill deficit and maladaptive coping reactions (to stress, insecurities and painful feelings). This includes people-pleasing, sabotaging, procrastinating, isolating, blaming, binging, etc.
To make matters worse, we berate ourselves without realizing it's the severe lack of skills that's to blame.
"I just wanted to say thank you. It is wonderful... for the first time in my life, I am seeing and feeling healing!!!!"
Client Experience
"When we resist tough emotions, they don't go away. Instead, they own us, they define us…the more we try to avoid our emotions, the more control they have over our thoughts and behavior."
Brene Brown, PhD
My Approach
Rather than just talk therapy or passive listening, I actively engage in sessions, providing an empowering, psychoeducational, skills-building approach to process painful emotions, resolve limiting beliefs and build self-worth. I also provide EMDR Therapy. I help clients resolve anxiety, insecurities, relational distress, maladaptive behaviors, like people-pleasing, reactivity or self-sabotaging.
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"Emotional pain changes relative to how you react to it. When you move toward it in an adaptive way, pain shrinks. When you move away from it, pain grows. If you flee from it, pain pursues you like a monster in a dream."
Tony Fahkry
Therapy Methods and Skills
Feel Calmer, Think Clearer, Connect Better, Live Healthier
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DBT TO PROCESS EMOTIONS
& CALM NERVOUS SYSTEM
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to process emotions, reduce anxiety and boost 'feel good' neurochemicals.
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RESOLVE MALADAPTIVE STRESS REACTIONS
Gain self-leadership over stress-reactions with IFS and CFT for emotional and relational health.
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CFT TO BOOST SELF-WORTH
& TAME INNER CRITIC
CFT, IFS and EMDR to treat trauma, berating and limiting core beliefs with Wise Mind over Inner Critic.
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ATTACHMENT FOCUSED THERAPY
Attachment-focused Therapy and interpersonal skills. End Victim Consciousness and Drama Triangle Trauma.
DBT Core Skills
To be most effective, DBT is designed to learn one lesson a week, with individual guidance from a licensed therapist or DBT trained instructor, and DBT Skills group (optional) for six months. It takes time to use the skills and have them work. When they do, you will have "lightbulb moments" and actually experience results you can feel.
Mindfulness is the foundational element and starting point in therapy, providing essential groundwork for the other three skill modules.
Distress tolerance skills help you get through intense emotional pain without making the situation worse. Builds neuroplasticity 'tolerance muscles.'
Emotional regulation involves understanding and processing your emotions, and choosing how to express and respond.
Interpersonal effectiveness help you be more effective at listening and communicating your wants and needs to ensure you feel respected, supported and cared for.
"Delivering the body from functioning as a storage room for suppressed emotions brings a sense of natural love and ease, a spaciousness, that we commonly call happiness."
Somesh Curti, PhD
Emotional Health Skills Matter
DBT Skills and Compassion Focused Therapy
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Emotion is a normal, healthy part of our biology. If you keep trying to depress or ignore your emotions, you will feel depressed, ignored and even ignorable/unlovable on some level, no matter how much how much you achieve or care for yourself in other ways.
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Emotions are always 'on' much like the weather so we cannot turn our emotions on and off however we can 'weather' the stormy emotions and be grateful for the 'sunny' and calm emotions when we experience them.
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We can change emotions with emotion This is why neuroscience shows that intentional emotions like gratitude, mindful self-compassion (MSC) and curiosity towards our painful emotions literally make us feel better by shifting and calming our nervous system.
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Receiving emotional validation from parents results in naturally validating/valuing our own emotions, and thus validating/valuing/knowing ourselves (self-worth).
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We are not born knowing the language of emotion. Learning emotional literacy is essential. Otherwise our emotions will be overwhelming and confusing, like any foreign language. If you are confused about your own emotions, you’ll be confused about others' emotions, leaving you susceptible to more anxiety, disappointment and disconnection.
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Emotion tell us our genuine wants, needs and needed limits. When you learn to interpret and process your emotions, you know yourself for real, and can attend to your genuine wants, desires, values, aspirations and needs.
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is the substance of all relationships. If you are not attending to your emotions, you are bypassing your genuine wants, desires, likes, dislikes, needs, values, interests, etc. that allow for genuine connection and feeling valued.
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Emotional Intelligence is the most proven predictor of success and joy in life and in work, more so than general intelligence.
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Recognizing childhood emotional neglect (very common) helps us make a conscious effort to learn the missing skills so you can learn what you didn't get to learn in childhood.
Four Stress Reaction Types
Get Unstuck from Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn
Understanding your stress types, associated symptoms and maladaptive coping methods (maladaptive 'protecting' reactions and 'getting' behaviors) is the first step. Our Attachment Style, childhood and adulthood experiences, adaptations, personality, birth order, trauma, and genetic predispositions impact how we develop stress types.
Flight Type
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Anxiety, Panic
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OCD, Hypervigilant
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Impulsivity, Binging
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Busyaholic
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Perfectionism
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Achievement Addict
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Fawn Type
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People-pleasing
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Compliant
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Inner Critic
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Sacrificing / Resentful
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Anxious Attachment
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Hero/Helper Addict
Freeze Type
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Depression
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ADD, Dissociation
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Substance Use
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Fatigue
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Avoidant Attachment
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Achievement Underminer
Fight Type
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Outbursts
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Controlling
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Outer Critic
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Shaming / Blaming
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Abusive (Unintentional)
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Personality Disorders
“A current event can have only the vaguest resemblance to a past situation and this can be enough to trigger the psyche’s hard-wiring for a fight, flight, fawn or freeze response."
Pete Walker, MA
Complex-PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving
Impact on Our Nervous System, Neurochemicals and Emotions
Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn Automatic Reactions
Maladaptive 'Getting' and 'Protecting' Strategies and Core Roles
Heal Your Insecure Attachment Style
The latest research shows 50% of adults in our society have an Insecure Attachment Style. This also results in chronic nervous system activation.
When you understand Insecure Attachment Styles (Anxious, Avoidant, Fearful-Avoidant) everything suddenly clicks. Stemming from childhood and influenced in adulthood, our attachment style effects:
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How we feel about ourselves and others
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Thoughts, emotions and behaviors
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Nervous system and neurochemicals in each moment
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Mental, emotional and physical health
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Responses to stress and vulnerability, both adaptive and maladaptive
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Foundation of self-worth and sense of lovability
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Self-care consistency to align with personal values, wants, needs, safety, connection
Fortunately, our attachment style isn't set in stone. It can change, evolve and is treatable. Through learning, we can develop more secure patterns and secure sense of self.
Impacts All Areas of Our Lives
Attachment Style also predicts the quality and duration of relationships and directly correlates to how we interact with others - family, friends, coworkers, community, and even how we view the world at large. Attachment style also correlates to our sense of purpose, career, values and ability to align with our genuine values and accomplish personal goals.
Sense of Self
Health
Self-Trust
Neurochemicals
Partner
Intimacy
Trust
Love
Helps Save Time & Money
Family
Friends
Parenting
Safety
Helps Save Time & Money
Career
Financial Health
Goals
Purpose
Four Attachment Styles
Secure and Insecure Types: Anxious, Avoidant and Fearful-Avoidant
Even though we all tend to have some traits and tendencies of each style at some point in our lives, we tend to default to one more than the other, along with associated triggers, assumptions, core beliefs and maladaptive reactions that cause can havoc on our lives.
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If you want a secure relationship, you need to give up making a project out of changing the relationship or your partner and make a project out of expressing your own wants and needs [including 'me time' needs].
Jenny Brown, PhD
Secure Self-Worth and Resolving Inner Critic
Inner Criticism without Self Leadership Leads to Chronic Stress and Associated Mental, Emotional and Physical Health Conditions
This is complex and transformational work. With IFS Parts Work, DBT and Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) gain awareness and learn to balance and mentor your inner critical thoughts with Wise Mind.
We all have an Inner Critic influenced by our childhood, adulthood, attachment style, core beliefs and expectations from culture, family and friends, and fueled by social survival needs (connection needs, sense of belonging, purpose, value, etc). Inner Critic uses shame, guilt, and self-berating. It results in a slew of maladaptive protective stress reactions trying to 'get' connection or 'protect' from punishment or rejection.
Our Inner Critics are unique, however there are seven common types
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Perfectionist berates you with impossible standards
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Taskmaster drives you to work and achieve at all costs
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Inner Controller controls and shames like a dictator
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Guilt Tripper unrelenting regret and shame, refusing self-forgiveness
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Inner Destroyer attacks your self-worth (worthiness to even exist)
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Underminer minimizes your accomplishments and strengths
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Molder / Conformist people-pleasing, self-shaming, self-rejecting
Self-criticism is a survival behavior to ensure acceptance. Even though the alpha dog eats first, the dog that shows his belly when snarled at still gets his share. Self-criticism, a submissive behavior, abasing ourselves before imaginary others—as if we will be rewarded with a few crumbs from the table.
Kristin Neff, PhD
Founder of evidence-based Mindful Self-Compassion program and therapy methods
Somatic Attachment Focused EMDR (SAFE) Therapy
Client Experiences
I just wanted to say thank you. It is wonderful... for the first time in my life, I am seeing and feeling healing!!!!
The ability to calm my nervous system with regulation is something I didn't even know existed. Learning DBT has improved my entire life.
Truly grateful for all you have done for me. I can feel such a shift. I've had dozens of therapists throughout my life, but have never felt benefits until now. Thank you!
Thank you for your help over the past several weeks. You helped me restore my self-worth and push my confidence to move forward with my life and career.
I used to have panic attacks. Now if I feel anxious I trust myself to self-soothe and feel better in a few minutes.
I hope you have a smile knowing how you are really having a healing impact on people! Thank you for helping me heal and learn to love myself.
My Credentials
Licensure and Supervision
Licensed Professional Counselor: Arizona / LPC-23927
Certifications and Awards
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Best of Scottsdale Award, Best Counselor 2019
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Certified Relationship Coach / 08101704
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Certified Clinical Trauma Professional / IAPT
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IFS-Informed Therapist (Parts Work) / IFS Institute
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Level 1 Gottman Method Therapist
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Certified Dialectical Behavior Therapist
Education
MASTER OF SCIENCE PROFESSIONAL COUNSELING
2019
Grand Canyon University / Phoenix, AZ
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (MBA)
Human and Organizational Behavior
2012
Grand Canyon University / Phoenix, AZ
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN BUSINESS
EMPHASIS IN ECONOMICS
2005
Arizona State University / Tempe, AZ
