Telehealth Therapy: About Me

Hi, I'm Carmen, and I'm really glad you're here! 

Finding the right therapist can feel overwhelming, so if you've made it to this page, you've already shown courage and strength. Whether you're dealing with something heavy that's been weighing on you for years, or you just know something needs to change and you're not quite sure where to start, you've come to the right place.

I'm a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and Certified Clinical Trauma Professional (CCTP), and I work with teens, young adults, and adults across Florida and Virginia through telehealth. But more than my credentials, here's what I want you to know about me as a person. I'm genuinely curious about your story and invested in how we can collaboratively work to build a life that feels worth living. I will not make you feel judged for who you are or what you've been through. My clients have described me as warm, friendly, gentle, and open-minded which is something I take a lot of pride in.

I am proudly LGBTQ+ affirming. Every single person who walks through my (virtual) door deserves to feel completely safe being themselves.  

I believe that most of the ways we struggle make a lot of sense once we understand where they came from.

Maybe you've noticed that you shrink yourself in relationships, or that you're always waiting for something to go wrong even when things are good. Maybe you're harder on yourself than you'd ever be on anyone else, or you keep finding yourself in the same exhausting patterns no matter how hard you try to change them. Maybe something happened (big or small, years ago or recently) and it quietly changed the way you move through the world, even if you've never thought of it that way.

You don't have to call it trauma. You don't even have to have a name for it at all. A lot of people come to me thinking "my problems aren't bad enough for therapy" or "other people have it so much worse." But pain doesn't have a minimum requirement, and struggling doesn't mean you're weak. It means you're human.

Somewhere along the way, we learned really unhealthy patterns that have been slowly draining the joy out of our lives. We learned to speak unkindly to ourselves, and maybe let others do the same. We learned to put everyone else first just to keep the peace. We learned to do things on our own because asking for help wasn't an option. And somewhere along the way, some of us learned that we weren't deserving of love or happiness.

That was never fair. And it was never true.

Together, we'll figure out where those patterns came from, what they've been trying to protect you from, and how to build something that actually works for the life you want now. Because you deserve to take up space. You deserve to ask for help. You deserve relationships that pour back into you. And you deserve to actually believe that.

I've worked in some of the most demanding corners of mental health care — crisis hotlines, inpatient psychiatric hospitals, and outpatient counseling — and those experiences have given me a deep understanding of what it means to show up for someone in their hardest moments. I find it deeply meaningful to help people understand how their experiences have shaped them, and even more meaningful to watch them begin to rewrite that story.

I use a blend of evidence-based approaches including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Internal Family Systems (IFS),  attachment based, and trauma based practices tailored to fit you specifically. Because you're not a diagnosis or a checklist. You're a whole person, and that's exactly how I'll treat you.

Expect warmth. Expect honesty. Expect a lot of genuine curiosity about who you are and what makes you tick. I'll never push you faster than you're ready to go, and I'll never make you feel like there's a "right" way to do this.

One thing clients often mention is that I am not a "blank face" therapist. You'll see every reaction, every smile, every moment of genuine "wait, tell me more about that" on my face, because I can't help it. I'm just really invested in your story. For a lot of people, especially those who've felt unheard or invisible, that makes a bigger difference than you might expect. You'll always know you're talking to a real person who is genuinely present with you, not someone just nodding along behind a screen and making you do mental gymnastics to try to figure out what they're thinking or worrying if you've said too much. 

My sessions are fully online, which means you can show up from wherever you feel most comfortable whether that be your couch, your room, a parked car or anywhere else that works for you. I serve clients across Florida and Virginia, and I'd love for you to be one of them!