I am Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with over 11 years of experience. I work with children, families, and adults. In my journey on figuring out how to best support the clients I have worked with, I have realized that crying and anger are often people interpreted as weakness. Anger is the mask that many of us use to cover all the other feelings and emotions throughout our daily life, which often impacts our relationships with others, and most importantly the relationship with ourselves.
Exploring, discovering, and processing the underlying causes of feelings and emotions can be the first step to remembering, reliving the moment in a safe environment, and learning about yourself without getting stuck. Mental health is like a rope with a bunch of knots along it. Somewhere, somehow they were made, and wanting to undo them can take effort and time, but it can be done. Creating a new path in which you take back your personal power, find yourself, and improve your daily life functioning and quality of life is what inspires me to be of service to others.
I am trained in CPP (Child-Parent Psychotherapy), MAP (Managing and Adapting Practice) which addresses cognitive-behavioral mental health through structured collaboration, a framework for coordinating support for each individuals’ needs. I also draw from Family Systems Therapy, and Narrative Therapy among others. I work with individuals and families who are going through life transitions, experiencing relationship issues, anxiety disorders, and depression.
In addition to traditional mental health approaches I am also trained and use EFT or ‘tapping’ (Emotional Freedom Technique), which some call ‘acupressure for the emotions”. It is focused on releasing the emotional impact of stressful or traumatic life events from the body and mind. Levels of stress are reduced by using a pattern of movements and statements created according to your needs. You will learn techniques that you can easily use on your daily life to help maintain a steady emotional life style and address stress right when it occurs instead of carrying it for hours, days, months, or years.
Alicia E. Arango-Yanez, MA LMFT