Services
Dr. Mandel has extensive training and experience and utilizes several approaches to tailor your psychotherapy and help you to reach your goals in the most effective and efficient ways. Based on your needs, the focus of therapy may relate to managing current issues and stressors, or it may address working more deeply with your underlying history that is often the root of your current pain. Throughout the therapy process, you learn to develop insight and acquire coping strategies and tools for personal growth in addition to having healthier and more fulfilling relationships.
Couples
Dr. Mandel is a trained and certified advanced Imago relationship therapist. The primary work of an Imago couple’s therapist is to help support both partners in their efforts to understand each other’s needs, improve communication, foster intimacy, and help to restore the connection lost in their relationship. Dr. Mandel helps to facilitate this connection by teaching the couple how to engage with each other by using a specific structure called “The Imago Dialogue.” This dialogue helps the couple understand what’s going on underneath their conflict or crisis and allows the couple to figure out how to address their issues in a healthy way. The Imago Dialogue can help couples replace their ineffective communication techniques with new ways of being in relationship with each other that helps them feel safe and connected. Built into the structure of the Imago Dialogue are the skills of listening to each other’s perspective without needing to get defensive, all while learning to have empathy for each other’s experience and differences. These skills are then taken outside of therapy as the couple adapts and benefits from what they have learned, which helps them to heal themselves and their relationship. By working with Dr. Mandel in couples therapy, you learn to address issues by being more curious about yourself and your partner. You will move from blame and reactivity to understanding and empathy all while developing a healthier, loving, and more conscious connection with each other. Imago therapy is for couples at any stage in their relationship who want to address issues or create an opportunity for growth and develop a more rewarding and fulfilling relationship.
Trauma & PTSD
Dr. Mandel is trained and certified in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy and works with patients who have experienced trauma. EMDR therapy is an integrative psychotherapy treatment that is highly successful for the treatment of recent and past traumatic events, and PTSD. EMDR works by helping you heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of upsetting life experiences and trauma. When a person experiences a trauma or a disturbing life event, their brain cannot process information as it normally should, and the moment becomes “frozen in time.” These memories can have a lasting negative effect that interferes with the way an individual views the world and the way that they relate to others. EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological injury much like the body recovers from physical injury. When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a repeated injury irritates the wound, it causes pain and delays healing. If your mind is blocked by the impact of a disturbing experience and the emotional wound festers, it can cause suffering. Once the emotional impediment is removed, healing resumes. EMDR processing results in the alleviation of the presenting symptoms, an elimination of the distress from the disturbing memory, and an improved view of self. EMDR therapy facilitates the accessing and processing of memories that one experiences as adverse and brings these to an adaptive resolution allowing you feel more at ease and move forward in your life.
Anxiety & Depression
Dr. Mandel works with patients experiencing anxiety, depression, phobias, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). She helps her patients gain insight and develop effective coping skills to manage their difficulties constructively and confidently. Psychotherapy can address self-limiting negative beliefs and can help you to acquire healthy coping skills, achieve self-growth, and heal. During your therapy process, Dr. Mandel will provide the best possible care, by utilizing her skills to support you and address your individual needs and goals while helping you on your path to wellness. During your psychotherapy process she can help you develop the skills needed to improve the feelings you have about yourself, develop healthier boundaries and behavior patterns, and better self-care. Dr. Mandel supports you by facilitating improved self-awareness, helping you learn to manage your feelings by developing skills and utilizing that skill set in between sessions. Dr. Mandel’s goal is to provide you with long-lasting benefits, giving you the tools that you need to address emotional triggers, re-direct damaging patterns, and overcome the challenges you face. She can help you to develop insight, learn new ways to cope with stress and anxiety and make the internal shifts that will help you to succeed on your own long after your therapy is finished.
Life Transitions
Dr. Mandel provides the help, guidance, and tools needed to manage the stress and anxiety that can occur during periods of major life change and transition, like parenting or career shifts.
Dr. Mandel helps couples during the distinct phases of their parenting journey. Experiencing the stress that comes with parenting can be overwhelming; whether it is the arrival of a new child, teens growing into emerging young adults, or the loss that can arise with empty nest syndrome. Whether the strain is in your co-parenting relationship or in the connection with your child, increasing understanding and awareness can provide you with better ways to interact with each other, improve communication, resolve conflicts, and strengthen bonds.
During a career change, you may come to a crossroad in how you identify with your sense of purpose, what you want to achieve, or the uncertainty that comes with finding a new career path or leaving one. You may be experiencing anxiety and stress around this process as you struggle with what steps to take next. Dr. Mandel can help you to gain a clearer understanding of your professional priorities by working with you to develop your personal vision and professional direction. She can help you to understand your ambivalence, so you can evaluate and prioritize your options and decide what will best satisfy not only your career goals but your work-life balance.
Learning that you have a major diagnosis can be scary and overwhelming, as it can disrupt your life as you know it. Dr. Mandel has significant experience in treating individuals facing a diagnosis of cancer or chronic illness. Dr. Mandel has a unique skill set, with years of experience as a medical and oncology social worker, along with a background in oncology and surgical nursing. She helps her patients cope with the difficult emotional challenges that result from dealing with a serious illness. Psychotherapy can act as a catalyst to address the range of emotional and psychosocial issues that can occur when confronting a life-threatening or ongoing illness. Dr. Mandel can help you meet the personal challenges that arise and help you develop coping strategies and inner resources to address the emotional complexity of your treatment journey. She helps her patients manage a wide variety of emotional needs during the many phases of their illness.