Thank you for taking a moment to review my BetterHelp profile. My name is Amy Weston, and I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor currently practicing in the state of Florida. I graduated from Rollins College, in 1992, with a Master of Arts in Counseling. After graduate school, I worked as a lead therapist for a community mental health center. I facilitated individual, group, and family psychotherapy services for inpatient, short term residential and partial hospitalization programs. This training ground provided me with extensive experience working with individuals dealing with major psychiatric issues. This professional opportunity fostered my ability to assess crisis situations, developing effective short term treatment objectives. Since 2017, I have been working as an Independent Therapist, in a private practice offering group, family, couple and individual counseling and social coaching services. My current focus has been providing social skill training to individuals on the Autism Spectrum and those with Down syndrome. Ages typically range from 10 to adulthood. I am passionate about working with teenagers (and their parents) experiencing transitional crises, as they move beyond high school into the collegiate world, as well as, adults experiencing challenges in the competitive job market. My theoretical approach is pragmatic, client centered and goal directed. As a therapist, I believe flexibility is paramount to building rapport. I utilize key tenets and interventions grounded in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Solution Focus Brief Therapy and Social Skill Training. Utilizing Cognitive Behavioral Techniques helps clients understand the relationship between thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Cognitive Behavioral Strategies allow clients to begin to understand that faulty thinking may be exacerbating their current situation. When clients are given the tools to investigate their own thought processes, they learn they have control of changing their perception, of themselves and their world. Incorporating Social Skill training, affords clients the ability to improve their social awareness and social competency. Key focus is placed on assertive communication, learning how to regulate emotions and relationship building, by improving social filter and ability to make social predictions. Change is hard and we tend to expend a great deal of energy trying to avoid it. However, I believe people are resilient and capable of making lasting change. When you are ready to begin this journey it helps to have someone you can trust walking beside you. Building rapport, is the first step. It would be my honor to help you determine the path you want to travel and the changes you would like to incorporate.