Adolescent and Adult Psychotherapy

• Are you suffering from disabling anxiety, panic or depression symptoms?

• Is grieving the loss of a loved one more difficult than you might have anticipated?

• Do you experience rapid changes in mood?

• Does the world seem like a dangerous place to you

• Do you have a challenging or toxic relationship with someone, yourself, sex, the internet, money or food that you are unable to stop despite harmful consequences?

• Do you feel like life is overwhelming and that you can’t get through?

Our tormenter is our teacher.

Who or what is your tormenter? Is it your abusive spouse? Your boss? A divorce, job termination, salary cut? Did you lose your child? Is it a sick parent or child or your own debilitating illness or addiction? Or, is it your virulent depression, paralyzing anxiety or bipolar depression?

Opportunities show up in many ways.

Life Can Be Tough Sometimes

At various points in life there are obstacles or challenges with which we are faced. The aftermath of trauma and loss is painful and confusing and leaves us with intense sadness, shame and perhaps loneliness. Attachment wounds from our childhood often become reactivated and make their way into our present connections. Navigating through these events—a difficult childhood, a divorce, career change, a loss through death, change or break-up, unhealthy relationships at home or work—can produce unexpected symptoms such as disabling anxiety, depression and addictions. Healing from these injuries, old and new, can help us move forward.

Crises are built into our journey; there is no way to circumvent death, birth, the loss of our childhood and adolescence, menopause, aging and more. At each juncture a crisis poses an opportunity for growth; we are not given a challenge we cannot master.

Yet coping daily with pain and sorrow can seem like an endless road with no respite. The journey through healing can be a difficult one wrought with struggles and pain yet worth the pilgrimage. The end result is a healthy relationship with yourself and deeper and more meaningful relationships with others.

Mental Disorders Are Common, Serious and Often Treatable

A 2014 survey estimated over 43 million people to suffer from some emotional disorder; that’s almost 30% of the American population or one in five, 18 and over. Almost 8 million had both a co-occurring mental and substance-use disorder. Anxiety disorders—anxiety, panic, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias—are the most common, with depression a close second.  For a portion of these individuals, the symptoms interfere significantly in their lives, making it challenging for them to handle life’s demands.

An Emotional Impasse Can Impact Your Daily Activities and Meaningful Relationships

Eustress is stress in small doses; it can actually help you in your daily life. Anxiety is like alcohol; in small doses it can be effective; it can get you mobilized to function; in large doses it can be destructive. The pain of anxiety and depression that presents itself in unrelenting form, as do other symptoms, sometimes remit but often not without help. There are often negative consequences such as, but not limited to, loss of friendships and/or marriage, isolation, health issues, job loss and more. The long-term impact of stress on our brain chemicals and stress hormones makes it more challenging to reverse.

Therapy Can Give You a Better Understanding

Fortunately, there is help and for those who reach for it; there is relief. While many people handle their problems on their own, there are times when seeking professional assistance can bring a different perspective, support and tools needed to empower and change destructive patterns. Therapy can be a priceless experience.

Through a variety of methods such as conventional talk therapy, rapid-resolution techniques and couples and group therapy, psychologist and sexologist Dr. Winter can help. Dr. Winter brings modalities from both Western and Eastern traditions. She offers consultation and individual, couples and family therapy for adolescents and adults. Psychotherapeutic modalities include cognitive-behavioral (CBT) therapy, psychodynamic therapy, family therapy, couple’s therapy, group therapy, sex therapy and hypnotherapy, mindfulness and EMDR.  Treatment is tailored to the needs of the individuals involved. While there are often times in which events from the past are explored, the approach is solution-focused and proactive.  Working together to help you heal and transform in the most efficient manner is the objective.

Treatment for most clinical problems is available including:

Dr. Winter provides counseling and therapy for anxiety, depression, divorce, behavioral addictions, trauma, dissociation and PTSD, sexual disorders and grief and loss. Help is available for individuals, couples and families at all stages of attachment, separation, divorce and reorganization. With a unique blend of training and experience as a psychologist, sex therapist, and certified sex addiction therapist, Dr. Winter has the credentials and devotion to assist you in your journey away from pain and loss and into health. She is the only psychologist who is a sexologist, EFT-trained couple’s therapist, discernment counselor and hypnotherapist who is certified in EMDR and Sex Addiction therapy.

There is no time like the present and no excuse to not be your best self!

What Comes in The Way of Your Healing?

“I don’t need help.” . . . Reaching for help is by far the greatest challenge for most. Having to admit that you cannot do everything yourself is often viewed as defeat. It isn’t, however, and often simply reaching out provides relieve for a huge burden of which we carry.

“Therapy is cost prohibitive and my insurance won’t help.” . . . Most clinicians today do not accept insurance. There is no investment better than into oneself and one’s healing. Dr. Winter offers as a service to her patients the electronic submission to your carrier and if you have out-of-network benefits you may be reimbursed for part or all of the charge. If you have no insurance coverage you might speak with her about her fee; there are instances in which she may work with you.

“There is no time.” . . . For most people, putting oneself first is a challenge in and of itself; there are always other things to do and other places to be. Furthermore, developmental trauma has taught us to not nurture ourselves. Problems will not often remit spontaneously. There is no time like the present to invest in and be your best self.

“No-one will understand or be able to help me with my problems.” . . . As long as there is no space to let someone in, help will not be possible. Only you can open that space to let someone in and help them understand how you feel. For some, therapy is about learning to take in and attune to our own and other’s needs.

“Those closest to me do not support my getting help.” . . . Believe it or not, on some occasions,  those closest to you are the biggest deterrents to your getting better and making real change; they are used to you the way you are and the system and dance you have developed sometimes supports your pathology and symptoms. Sometimes getting better means leaving people behind; sometimes they will change the dance along with you and get healthy too and other times they may just accept you with your changes.