About
I am Rebecca Waterston, M.A., LMHC (licensed in the state of Washington). My clientelle includes working with individuals, both adults and adolescents, as well as working with married couples, pre-marriage counseling or partners. I work remotely with a HIPAA compliant, confidential and private platform for our sessions and find that many, to most, of my clients prefer being able to meet from the comfort of their own home.
Specialties include trauma work with efficacy-based, non-retraumatizing treatment protocols that I have found tremendously helpful and successful in relieving past pain and traumatic experiences. I also work often with Anxiety and would almost call it an epidemic of anxiety with the large number of clients reporting that as their major difficulty.
Adolescents are usually dealing with family difficulties, relationship/friendship issues, bullying, or feeling alone and different than their peers. This lack of self-confidence can make them feel 'different' so the goal in to help them truly get to know themselves and to value themselves, to learn that their differences are their strengths, and that they can learn to change their upsetting thoughts that cause them the emotional pain they are experiencing.
Other specialties include anxiety, mood disorders, working with couples, whether facilitating healing in their relationship or coping the best they can through a separation or divorce. A couple of more recent specialties include "Women's Mental Health Issues," including all aspects & stages of a woman's life. I also work with HSPs (highly sensitive people) who can begin to thrive as they learn how to self-regulate, restore and gently care for themselves in a 'Loud, Fast, Too-Much World.' Too often they have just been called "too sensitive" and dismissed. But their unique blend of empathy, intelligence and awarenesses are qualities that they can learn to thrive with as they learn how to care for themselves.
I have worked with addictions, including drug and alcohol substance abuse, sex addiction and working with betrayed partners of sex addicts in recovery, and also with codependents and love addicts, who too often lose themselves in a relationship. Partners of those fighting addiction also need support and I have worked primarily with women trying to carve out their own lives and well-being, as well as their children's safety and environment in the face of the addiction of a family member. Psychoeducation, support and resources of different kinds are vital to this work.
I use a number of therapeutic tools and methods but there is no one-size-fits all, so I determine what my client needs are first, and then use the appropriate intervention that will be the most helpful at that time or that session. Lastly, my client knows themselves better than anyone else, so I listen intently to truly understand my client. Lastly I do quite a bit of psychoeducation, because I believe and so often see, that information and education about what they are dealing with can be extremely helpful to many people in beginning to learn how not only how to deal with the issue, but also where it came from so those thoughts can be reframed into thoughts that will be more helpful to their lives.
