Olivia Carelli, Psy.D,
Licensed Clinical Psychologist
and
Lee Sloan, LCSW
Licensed Clinical Social Worker
Compassionate Psychotherapy for Adults, Teens, Couples and Families
Stuart, FL
Individualized, Compassionate Psychotherapy
For those who have been struggling and experiencing emotional pain, we are here to provide individualized and compassionate therapy, counseling, and other mental health services to those in Stuart, Port St. Lucie, and the Treasure Coast. Our goal and purpose is to guide adults, teenagers, couples, and families in emotional crisis towards relieving psychological pain and building a future that is both exciting and motivating. In therapy, we will examine the patterns which have emerged in your life, explore their origins, and change those that have been obstructing your growth and self-actualization.
As therapists, we strive to be warm, authentic, and non-judgmental. We have always embraced a humble and relational approach to therapy and would be honored to be a part of your healing process.
Focus Areas
(ADHD) Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
A behavioral syndrome characterized by the persistent presence of six or more symptoms involving (a) inattention (e.g., failure to complete tasks or listen carefully, difficulty in concentrating, distractibility) or (b) impulsivity or hyperactivity (e.g., blurting out answers; impatience; restlessness; fidgeting; difficulty in organizing work, taking turns, or staying seated; excessive talking; running about; climbing on things).
Adolescent Issues
During the adolescent period, major changes occur at varying rates in physical characteristics, sexual characteristics, and sexual interest, resulting in significant effects on body image, self-concept, and self-esteem. Major cognitive and social developments take place as well: Most young people acquire enhanced abilities to think abstractly, make rational decisions about behavior, evaluate reality hypothetically, reconsider prior experiences from altered points of view, assess data from multiple dimensions, reflect inwardly, create complex models of understanding, and project complicated future scenarios. Adolescents also increase their peer focus and involvement in peer-related activities, place greater emphasis on social acceptance, and seek more independence and autonomy from parents.
Anorexia Nervosa
An eating disorder, occurring most frequently in adolescent girls, that involves persistent refusal of food, excessive fear of weight gain, refusal to maintain minimally normal body weight, disturbed perception of body image, and amenorrhea (absence of at least three menstrual periods).
anxiety
An emotion characterized by apprehension and somatic symptoms of tension in which an individual anticipates impending danger, catastrophe, or misfortune. The body often mobilizes itself to meet the perceived threat: Muscles become tense, breathing is faster, and the heart beats more rapidly.
Betrayal Trauma
A specific trauma that happens in key social relationships where the betrayed person needs to maintain a relationship with the betrayer for support or protection. Betrayal trauma theory suggests harm within attachment relationships, like relationships between a parent and child or between romantic partners, can cause lasting trauma.
Binge Eating
A disorder marked by recurring discrete periods of uncontrolled consumption of abnormally large quantities of food and by distress associated with this behavior. There is an absence of inappropriate compensatory behaviors (e.g., vomiting, laxative misuse, excessive exercise, fasting).
Bipolar Disorder
Any of a group of mood disorders in which symptoms of mania and depression alternate.
Borderline Personality Disorder
A personality disorder characterized by a long-standing pattern of instability in mood, interpersonal relationships, and self-image that is severe enough to cause extreme distress or interfere with social and occupational functioning.
Bulimia Nervosa
An eating disorder involving recurrent episodes of binge eating (i.e., discrete periods of uncontrolled consumption of abnormally large quantities of food) followed by inappropriate compensatory behaviors (e.g., self-induced vomiting, misuse of laxatives, fasting, excessive exercise).
Childhood Trauma
A scary, dangerous, violent, or life threatening event that happens to a child (0-18 years of age). This type of event may also happen to someone your child knows and your child is impacted as a result of seeing or hearing about the other person being hurt or injured. When these types of experiences happen, your child may become very overwhelmed, upset, and/or feel helpless.
Codependency
when each person involved is mentally, emotionally, physically, and/or spiritually reliant on the other. A codependent relationship can exist between romantic partners, but also with family members and friends, and tends to lead to dysfunctional relationship patterns.
Confidence Issues
Full trust, belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing.
Depression
A negative affective state, ranging from unhappiness and discontent to an extreme feeling of sadness, pessimism, and despondency, that interferes with daily life.
Dissociative Disorders
A negative affective state, ranging from unhappiness and discontent to an extreme feeling of sadness, pessimism, and despondency, that interferes with daily life.
Emotional Abuse
Nonphysical abuse: a pattern of behavior in which one person deliberately and repeatedly subjects another to nonphysical acts that are detrimental to behavioral and affective functioning and overall mental well-being.
Intergenerational Trauma
A phenomenon in which the descendants of a person who has experienced a terrifying event show adverse emotional and behavioral reactions to the event that are similar to those of the person himself or herself.
LGBT Care
abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning or queer: an inclusive term used to refer to the homosexual population in all of its diverse forms, to those with both homosexual and heterosexual preferences, and to those whose gender identity differs from the culturally determined gender roles for their birth sex.
Loneliness
affective and cognitive discomfort or uneasiness from being or perceiving oneself to be alone or otherwise solitary.
Obsessive compulsive disorder
a disorder characterized by recurrent intrusive thoughts (obsessions) that prompt the performance of neutralizing rituals (compulsions).
Panic Attacks
A sudden onset of intense apprehension and fearfulness in the absence of actual danger, accompanied by the presence of such physical symptoms as heart palpitations, difficulty breathing, chest pain or discomfort, choking or smothering sensations, sweating, and dizziness.
Post-traumatic Stres. Disorder (PTSD)
A disorder that may result when an individual lives through or witnesses an event in which he or she believes that there is a threat to life or physical integrity and safety and experiences fear, terror, or helplessness.
Self Esteem Issues
The degree to which the qualities and characteristics contained in one’s self-concept are perceived to be positive.
Self-harm/Injury
any forms of hurting oneself on purpose. Usually, when people self-harm, they do not do so as a suicide attempt. Rather, they self-harm as a way to release painful emotions.
Social Anxiety
Fear of social situations in which embarrassment may occur (e.g., making conversation, meeting strangers, dating) or there is a risk of being negatively evaluated by others (e.g., seen as stupid, weak, or anxious). Social anxiety involves apprehensiveness about one’s social status, role, and behavior.
Suicidal Tendencies
The risk of suicide, usually indicated by suicidal ideation or intent, especially as evident in the presence of a well-elaborated suicidal plan.
Clientele Seen
Teenagers
Ages 13-17
Young Adults
Ages 18-24
Adults
Ages 25-64
Seniors
Ages 65+
Individual Therapy
Treatment of psychological problems that is conducted on a one-to-one basis. One therapist sees one client at a time, tailoring the process to his or her unique needs in the exploration of contributory factors and alleviation of symptoms.
Family Therapy
A form of psychotherapy that focuses on the improvement of interfamilial relationships and behavioral patterns of the family unit as a whole, as well as among individual members and groupings, or subsystems, within the family.
Group Therapy
Treatment of psychological problems in which two or more participants interact with each other on both an emotional and a cognitive level in the presence of one or more psychotherapists who serve as catalysts, facilitators, or interpreters.
Treatment approaches
Attachment-Based
An attachment-based approach to therapy looks at the connection between an infant’s early attachment experiences with primary caregivers, usually with parents, and the infant’s ability to develop normally and ultimately form healthy emotional and physical relationships as an adult.
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
A form of psychotherapy that integrates theories of cognition and learning with treatment techniques derived from cognitive therapy and behavioral therapy. CBT assumes that cognitive, emotional, and behavioral variables are functionally interrelated. Treatment is aimed at identifying and modifying the client’s maladaptive thought processes and problematic behaviors through cognitive restructuring and behavioral techniques to achieve change.
Cognitive processing (CPT)
A form of cognitive behavior therapy that emphasizes cognitive strategies to help people alter erroneous thinking that has emerged because of a traumatic event. Practitioners may work with clients on false beliefs that the world is no longer safe, for example, or that they are incompetent because they “let” the traumatic event happen to them.
Dialectical (DBT)
A flexible, stage-based therapy that combines principles of behavior therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, and mindfulness. It establishes a “dialectic” between helping individuals to accept the reality of their lives and their own behaviors on the one hand and helping them learn to change their lives, including dysfunctional behaviors, on the other. Its underlying emphasis is on helping individuals learn both to regulate and to tolerate their emotions. DBT is designed for especially difficult-to-treat patients, such as those with borderline personality disorder.
Eclectic
Any psychotherapy that is based on a combination of theories or approaches or uses concepts and techniques from a number of different sources, including the integrated professional experiences of the therapist. With the more formalized prescriptive eclectic psychotherapy, the clinician attempts to customize psychological treatments and the therapeutic relationship to the specific needs of individual clients.
Emotional Focused
An integrative individual therapy that focuses on emotion as the key determinant of personality development and of psychotherapeutic change. In sessions, the therapist helps the client to become aware of, accept, make sense of, and regulate emotions as a way of resolving problems and promoting growth.
Existential
A form of psychotherapy that deals with the here and now of the client’s total situation rather than with his or her past or underlying dynamics. It emphasizes the exploration and development of meaning in life, focuses on emotional experiences and decision making, and stresses a person’s responsibility for his or her own existence.
Exposure Response Prevention
An intensive form of behavior therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder, involving exposure to situations or cues that trigger recurrent, intrusive, and distressing thoughts (obsessions) or provoke repetitive behaviors (compulsions), followed by abstinence from the compulsive behavior.
Humanistic
any of a variety of psychotherapeutic approaches that reject psychoanalytic and behavioral approaches; seek to foster personal growth through direct experience; and focus on the development of human potential, the here and now, concrete personality change, responsibility for oneself, and trust in natural processes and spontaneous feeling.
Interpersonal
A form of psychotherapy that focuses on relieving symptoms by improving interpersonal functioning. A central idea in IPT is that psychological symptoms can be understood as a response to current difficulties in everyday relationships with other people.
Motivational Interviewing
A client-centered yet directive approach for facilitating change by helping people to resolve ambivalence and find intrinsic reasons for making needed behavior change.
Person-Centered
A form of psychotherapy developed by Carl Rogers in the early 1940s. According to Rogers, an orderly process of client self-discovery and actualization occurs in response to the therapist’s consistent empathic understanding of, acceptance of, and respect for the client’s frame.
Psychodynamic
The psychological and psychiatric approach that views human behavior from the standpoint of unconscious motives that mold the personality, influence attitudes, and produce emotional disorder.
Trauma Focused
A specific approach to therapy that recognizes and emphasizes understanding how the traumatic experience impacts a person’s mental, behavioral, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. This type of therapy is rooted in understanding the connection between the trauma experience and the individual’s emotional and behavioral responses.
In-Person Therapist available Stuart, Port St Lucie, and the Treasure Coast.
