Sarah Puskavich, LCPC, NCC, CRC

Therapeutic Approach and Values

Many clients wonder what an average therapy session will be like. While working together, Sarah creates a balance between processing issues, and then developing coping skills to address concerns. Processing experiences and emotions allows you to focus on your experiences, identify patterns, sit with emotions, and clarify how you feel. Sometimes it also feels good just to get thoughts out of your mind within a safe space. While processing can lead to helpful insights and cathartic releases, adding in the skill development piece gives a framework for change to occur. It's Sarah’s role to propose a skill that may be helpful in addressing the issue that is being examined. Then together, Sarah works with her clients to modify the skill to make sure it's accessible and realistic for you. It is so important that this process is collaborative so you feel empowered to use these skills in your own life and understand the "why" behind it. The skills that are developed together, are not only backed by research, but have been shown to help people through Sarah’s clinical work. 

The therapeutic modalities that Sarah opts to use vary depending on the specific issue, but include techniques to promote reframing of unhelpful thoughts, increasing distress tolerance, increasing emotional identification and processing, and creating a sense of empowerment. Sarah is a proponent of Health at Every Size, equity within relationships, and the freedom for individuals to express their identity freely

Sarah is dedicated to making the therapy space a warm and supportive environment for each of her clients, whether you’re meeting in person or online. Sarah sees therapy as a highly personalized experience, so she takes the time and conscious effort needed to build trusting relationships. This means that Sarah believes therapy should take each person's background, culture, and lived experiences into account. Sarah doesn’t assume to fully understand your experience, but rather expects that it's something you can explore together. Sarah further recognizes that we live in a world where we are not unaffected by our sociopolitical culture, so she welcomes clients to explore its influences in therapy as they are getting to fully understand themselves.

Therapeutic Modalities Used:

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

• Mindfulness

• Dialectical Behavior Therapy

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

• Narrative Therapy

• Parts Work Therapy

• Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy

• Person-Centered Therapy