Approach to Therapy

I love being a therapist and look forward to my sessions with clients. I consider it a great privilege to be invited into peoples’ lives in times of struggle and vulnerability. My hope is clients will leave sessions feeling respected, understood, validated, accepted, and with less distress and more hope. I collaborate with clients, supporting them to heal and grow towards the lives they desire. I use an integrated, experiential, client-centered approach, weaving together Internal Family Systems (IFS) informed parts work, Trauma Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST), EMDR, Coherence Therapy, Attachment Theory, Mindfulness, and psychoeducation. I am an artist, and I draw on my creative training to tailor the therapy experience to each client. I work from a strengths-based perspective looking to amplify what clients are already doing that works. While therapy can be emotionally effortful, I pay close attention to pacing to keep sessions from becoming overwhelming. When attuned and fitting, I also bring playfulness and humor to sessions.

People come to therapy wanting something to shift. As they get to know their inner worlds more deeply and explore stuckness, clients typically come to understand polarizations between parts who want change and parts who are threatened by change. Distressed parts are trapped by painful memories, old hurts, and old stories of what is possible. They become rigid and extreme as they work overtime to keep us safe the best way they know how. By bringing care and connection to suffering parts, we can help them update and orient to the present. This frees them and enables us to be calm, flexible, and creative, allowing us to be capable of making true choices.

I work with young adults and adults of all races, ethnicities, religions, socio-economic statuses, sexual orientations, gender identities, body sizes, and abilities. I work from a size-inclusive weight-neutral HAES®-informed perspective aligned with Intuitive Eating. I take a stand against prejudice and the oppression of members of marginalized groups and seek to contextualize individual problems in the larger web of systems within which a person is embedded, including family, society, and culture.

Clients are welcome to bring important people such as partners, parents, children, or friends into sessions either for support, education, or to work on a relationship repair.

Education and Work Experience

After attending an arts high school and completing an undergraduate degree in fine art, I received a Master of Science in Mental Health Counseling from the University of Massachusetts-Boston. I also completed graduate coursework in couples and family therapy, as well as undergraduate coursework in child development. My clinical internship was at the Worchester, MA location of Walden Behavioral Care, an eating disorder treatment center, where I worked with adults and adolescents and their families. Prior to graduate school, I worked as a preschool teacher and then at Bradley Hospital in East Providence, RI with children with autism spectrum disorder and their families. I am also trained as an Embodyoga® yoga teacher and can integrate guided relaxation, body awareness, and meditation into sessions to reduce stress, increase the ability to self-soothe, and strengthen the inner witness to help clients be less carried away by negative thoughts and mood states. Before opening a private practice, I worked as a therapist at East Coast Mental Wellness in Providence, RI.

I am certified in Janina Fisher’s Trauma Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST) Level 1. In TIST, Fisher synthesized the work of the trauma pioneers she collaborated closely with throughout her career: Judith Herman, Bessel van der Kolk, and Pat Ogden and the parts work of Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Structural Dissociation. I completed my EMDR Therapy Basic Training Course with Deany Laliotis who was mentored by Francine Shapiro, the developer of EMDR, and served as the director of training at Shapiro’s institute. I am an EMDR certified therapist through the EMDR International Association (EMDRIA). I have taken workshops or attended advanced trainings in EMDR, Coherence Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) with developer Sue Johnson, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Eating Disorders An Evolutionary Approach with Shan Guisinger, and The Neurosychotherapist Institute’s Core Principles of Neuroscience. I completed Embodyoga® 200- and 300-Hour Teacher Training programs at Yoga Center Amherst where I also taught yoga and was an assistant teacher trainer. I am currently studying and receiving consultation on the integration of Internal Family Systems and EMDR at Syzygy Institute.

Issues and Concerns I work with:

Academic Issues - Study habits, procrastination, adjusting to the demands of college

Anxiety - Excessive worrying about events, activities, or situations that feel out of proportion and interfere with your everyday life; always picturing the worst occurring; muscle tension, feeling restless, on edge, or keyed up; feeling irritable, having difficulty concentrating or finding your mind going blank; fatiguing easily, restlessness, difficulty getting a good night of sleep

Artists’ & Creative Professionals’ Concerns - Resolving creative blocks; balancing your art with other needs; strategizing how to “make it work” financially; designing combinations of day jobs and creative work if needed

Coaching – Coaching available for clients who do not want to work on a mental health diagnosis, but instead would like to focus on personal growth

Depression - Experiencing a persistent low mood where you feel sad, empty or hopeless; loss of pleasure in things you used to enjoy; sleeping too much or too little; intense guilt or feelings of worthlessness; difficulty with fatigue and concentration; thoughts of death

Disordered Eating - Chronic dieting, chronic body dissatisfaction, compulsive exercise, weight suppression, building resilience to weight stigma and prejudice directed towards larger-bodied people, unlearning internalized fatphobia, non-diet and anti-diet approaches to wellness, recovering from negative impacts of diet culture, moving toward listening to body cues to nourish the body with enjoyable foods and pleasurable movement

Eating Disorders – Anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, orthorexia when weight restored and suitable for outpatient care, addressed through a framework that synthesizes biological, social/cultural, and psychological factors

Existential - Wrestling with issues about mortality, freedom, responsibility, injustice, searches for meaning

Grief & Loss - Loss of loved ones, relationships, pets, roles, identities, abilities

High Sensitivity - Helpling Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) develop an understanding and appreciation for the trait; learning how to value and meet their unique needs

LGBTQ+ Concerns - Positive identity development, coping with lack of acceptance of sexual orientation or gender identity from family and loved ones, building resilience

Life Transitions - Beginning college, a new career, parenthood, marriage, divorce, loss, children leaving home, retirement

Relationship Issues - Chronic conflict, living separate lives, loss of passion, persistent disagreements about money, in-laws, sex, work, parenting, exploring whether to stay together or separate, when divorcing how to have the best divorce possible

Shame & Self-criticism - Developing a more fair, kind, and supportive inner dialogue

Trauma & Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – Healing from the impact of experiencing or being exposed to threatening or frightening events, such as accidents, disasters, illnesses, and assaults, or recovering from the impact of complex developmental trauma including childhood abuse, mistreatment, neglect, chronic misattunement or attachment ruptures to reduce present day distress

Practicalities

● Currently Accepting New Clients: No

●       Office Hours: Daytime, afternoon, and evening hours available Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays

●       Location: 1 Richmond Square, 350W Providence, Rhode Island, 02906. Currently all sessions are telehealth video sessions conducted over Zoom for Healthcare. Licensed in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

●       Insurance, Services & Fees: Fifty-minute sessions, $180. Insurance taken: Blue Cross Blue Shield and United Healthcare. Receipts for out-of-network reimbursement through your insurance company provided upon request.

●       Contact: Please contact me to schedule a brief video consultation to discuss your needs, ask further questions, and see if we would be a good fit.

Email: lily@voseoneal.com, Telephone: (401) 203-3704