LizaBeth Madara

As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, I have focused the majority of my career on youth and young adults. I love working with young people as they navigate the challenges of personality development, family relationships, and exploring their place in the world beyond the family. My clinical judgment and practice strategies are guided by over twenty years of work with a wide variety of clients and circumstances. As a social worker in a lively high school and a parent of two young adults, I am very comfortable building rapport with the full gamut of adolescent personalities.

I am very excited to support clients in all developmental life stages as they work through clinical and non-clinical issues. These include depression, anxiety, trauma, divorce, grief and loss, life and career transitions, relationships, parenting, family dynamics, and aging.

Meaningful therapy must begin with a strong client-therapist relationship, and the understanding that you are an infinitely complex being. Ideally, we will put our heads together to understand the origins of the difficulties you are facing.

I strongly believe that two things are necessary for meaningful change and growth to take place. Gaining insight into your personality, relationships, and challenges is the fundamental task of therapy. But to really create new ways of interacting with your world, we must also discover concrete strategies that will work specifically for you. Without insight, coping strategies become rote behaviors that have no grip in our psyche. Without coping strategies, we have awareness but still lack the ability to move forward.

Our work together will focus on both deepening insight into what is beneath your current patterns, as well as determining concrete and effective strategies for the challenges you intend to overcome.

During our first session, I will want to know all the things...

You can expect me to gather a brief social history so I have some context for the difficulties you are facing. I will also want to hear about the current issues from your perspective. You can anticipate many questions; I will ask these to help us both gain clarity. My questions will be focused on us critically examining your unique experiences together, and creating a shared understanding of the difficulties you now face. You can anticipate feeling welcomed and supported rather than judged, as we begin to lay the groundwork for positive growth to take place.