Orna Goldwater

I received a doctoral degree in Counseling psychology and am licensed as a psychologist and health service provider in psychology in Washington DC and Texas. As a clinical Psychologist and Health Service Provider in Psychology I believe in a relationship that is honest, interactive, supportive, compassionate, as well as challenging. It is important for me to combine support with reality-based challenge that can help change problem behaviors and habits. Over the years, I developed collaborative methods that allow my patients to include in their work with me their family members and friends who may have important perspectives in the problem or the solutions. Members of the team can also include health and mental health providers that their input can help speed along the time in therapy. Adding others to your therapeutic team, helps.

Over the last two decades, I have been following the state of the art research about the brain and how to help develop hope that change is possible in adulthood. I believe in the human brain's innate self healing capabilities. using trauma informed skills such as EMDR and other tools that can impact the brain's processing of negative unresolved experiences; I help patients to activate this self healing capability to process pain and incorporate t the experience in a way that helps addressing difficulties in the present. This specialized set of techniques helps my patient move away from feeling victims to stress or circumstances and take on an active role in building the future they imagine and wish for.

During the first session my patients can expect to hear about how I work so they can ask questions and decide if we are a good fit. Right after that, I walk my patients through the first 18 years in their lives so we can notice what reality looked like when they were growing up. Patient will also talk about what brings them to reach out for therapy now. We will decide together about the first goals we would like to work on as a team and how we can measure success.