
Hello and welcome.
I am glad you are here because it means you are putting some serious thought into bettering your mental health and/or your relationships (those two things tend to go hand in hand, anyway).
Whether you are brand new to therapy or have seen several therapists over the years, feeling comfortable with that person is an extremely important aspect of the process. In fact, research shows that therapeutic rapport (the trust and comfort a client has with their therapist) is a bigger predictor of positive therapy outcomes than even what type of therapy the therapist is trained in! Don't get me wrong, the training is important (and we'll cover that in a moment). But let's face it, without having a sense of trust and comfort with your therapist, you won't get very far no matter how many awesome credentials your therapist might have!
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So please read on and allow me to get that process started by introducing myself...
My Personal Background
I was born and raised in a small town in South Georgia. My father is a veterinarian, so I spent many a day at his animal hospital tending to sick animals, watching and assisting him with surgeries, and wanting to rescue every stray cat or dog that came along! Why didn't I become a veterinarian, you might be wondering. Well, the short answer is I didn't see myself doing so well with the animals that were too sick or injured to be saved and I found myself really gravitating toward human and animal behavior studies in college.
I attended the University of Georgia and received my bachelor's degree in psychology as well as a master's degree. That degree was supposed to be a PhD, but it was meant for people who want to become researchers and professors in higher education settings, which I discovered was not for me. I realized that, while I loved the research side of psychology, I was more passionate about learning how to take that research and turn it into something directly helpful for the average person. In other words, I wanted to become a clinician, not a researcher. The problem was, that meant I was getting the wrong degree. Six years is too long to spend getting a degree you don't even want to use! So I left that program with a master's degree and did some soul searching before returning to invest more time and money on graduate training.
During that time off, I spent a year studying yoga and working at an ashram before moving to Austin, Texas for several years. When I was finally certain that becoming a therapist was what I wanted to do, I moved to Melbourne, Florida to attend Florida Institute of Technology for my Doctorate in Psychology (PsyD). This degree choice was based on the knowledge that I was passionate about bringing what the psychological research was teaching us about mental health directly to clients and patients. In other words, I wanted to be able to take all the wonderful knowledge that the great researchers are learning about human behavior and neuroscience and bring that directly to people to improve their mental health and enhance their lives. What good is knowledge if we aren't applying it to our benefit? That is what therapy is all about - taking all the psychological knowledge and research out there and applying it to benefit our lives.
Besides, my first master's degree already gave me training in the research side of the field. Now, I wanted to know as much as I could about how we translate that knowledge into actual, beneficial practices that help us feel better, think better, and "relationship" better. The PsyD degree was the answer to that. Like the PhD, it provides doctorate-level training in clinical psychology, but has a stronger focus on the clinical side of psychology. Bingo! So I dove right into the training that was going to focus on learning to provide high-quality therapy and counseling to clients to help them lead lives they felt good about leading. And here I am.
Branch Psychological
at
Brandywine Square
505 N Park Ave
Ste 201
Winter Park, FL 32789
(407) 205-9855
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