Allison Domingo

Hello and welcome, if you are here then you may be going through a difficult time. You are in the right place. I want to applaud you for taking this difficult step of getting started with therapy. It can be a difficult process but I am here to help you along the way.

I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the states of Illinois and California with over thirteen years of experience working in the field of mental health. With me, you can expect a therapist who is caring, direct and down to earth. I am empathic, skilled and value creating a safe therapeutic environment.

I have worked in a variety of mental health settings over the years including a women's health clinic, in-patient hospitals, and substance abuse treatment centers. With this experience, my expertise lies in working with women, client's who want to focus on trauma, people who have been touched by substance abuse in someway, and those with chronic illness along with their family members or caregivers.

I really enjoy working with people to assist them in reaching their goals. I take a collaborative approach to therapy and base my theoretical approach off of a personalized assessment. I often use Motivational Interviewing, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness, Problem Solving, Solution Focused, Emotion Focused, and Person Centered Therapy among others. I can provide various therapy tools and therapy homework assignments to clients that are interested.

In our first few sessions, you can expect us to take some time to get to know one another to make sure that it is a good fit for both of us. I will tell you a bit about myself and, after that, I will begin to ask you a few questions about yourself. We know from extensive research that the best indicator for good client outcomes from therapy is feeling like you connect with and can trust your therapist. You are in the drivers seat and get to decide how to proceed. My role is to assist you in this whole process however I can, even if that is connecting you with a different provider that may better suit your needs.

The first few sessions will be different as we take time to complete what we call an "initial assessment". This will consist of me asking a lot of questions about your history. I would like to take the time to say that this can be a difficult part of the process as it can stir up emotions such as anger, confusion, sadness or grief. This is not everyones experience, but I do like to make people I work with aware of this possibility. We will then work together to create goals for treatment and take some time to discuss the specific approach we will take.