Stella D. Cruz Rodriguez

Opening up to a therapist who is a complete stranger is very scary and puts people in a vulnerable position. Not everyone is ready to implement changes in their lives. However, working with a therapist and improving your quality of life and relationships is beneficial in the long-term. My experience is that people tend to be hesitant about working with a therapist at the beginning. However, the majority of people realize how healing can improve their mental and physical health. Many of my clients have even mentioned to me how therapy helped them and how they started recommending their family and friends to work with a therapist.

I prefer a more integrative approach in order to support and honor my client's needs. However, I tend to incorporate the ACT approach in my practice since it provides a guidance to clients by focusing on their values. On the other hand, this approach helps people to be more open and flexible when it comes to accept things out of their control (which tends to be a common issue.

Even though my main specialty is working with PTSD and trauma, I tend to focus more on providing support and coping skills to clients in order to address their distress first. We don't have to talk explicitly about the traumatic experiences right away and for some cases it's not needed. However, a lot of clients benefit from processing their traumatic experiences, in order to change their relationship with those memories and with their younger-selves.

Research has shown that Teletherapy is as effective as face-to-face services. However, during the pandemic I noticed an increase of request for remote services. I also noticed that it's more convenient for people to connect to a video visit from the comfort of their home VS having to commute miles away to receive services. Of course, there are lots of benefits from receiving services face-to-face for clients who need more intensive support (every situation is different). However, the majority of my clients prefer remote services.

I only provide services to Adults (18+).