About Carissa

Carissa, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, finished her Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology with a emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy at Pepperdine University. Carissa holds a license in Marriage and Family Therapy in both Colorado and California. She has over 15 years of experience dealing with individuals, couples, and families in a variety of settings. She worked with a non-profit organization focusing on dealing with the parents and families of children with special needs needs. She also has considerable education and practical experience in Applied Behavior Analysis.

Carissa’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) education and expertise started when working at an in-patient treatment facility. During her time there, she worked with a wide variety of clinical concerns and diagnosis’ applying Dialectical Behavior Therapy. She acquired on-site training and education in DBT. She is a skilled group therapist with experience leading groups a including DBT, CBT, and Seeking Safety, Mindfulness, Body Centered, and Experiential.

As the Director of the Intensive Outpatient, Outpatient and Alumni Program in an addiction treatment facility, Carissa was responsible for the day to day clinical oversight of the IOP/OP and Alumni Programs.

Carissa has worked in intensive outpatient care and private practice settings providing brief and long-term psychotherapy, psycho-education, and consultation to adolescents and adults, groups, couples, and families struggling with issues that include eating disorders, dual diagnoses, depression, anxiety, addictions, personality disorders (in particular BPD), multicultural issues, and trauma.

In her private practice, Carissa focuses on Mindfulness based psychotherapy. Her work is in line with the belief that individuals desire to be content, efficient and prosperous in their everyday life and they also have within themselves the means to attain these desired goals. She believes that developing therapeutic relationship is essential to advancing in life. She provides a safe and validating environment that encourages development and change. She believes that psychotherapy can assist people to successfully use their own strengths and wisdom to improve self-understanding, to enhance decision-making, to resolve problems, and to mindfully follow the path to the lives they desire…”a life worth living”.

Expertise: anxiety, trauma, mood disorders, parenting, divorce, families of children with special needs, addiction, personality disorders. She makes use of a collaborative working relationship centered around a empathetic therapeutic approach that is based on Mindfulness while also using an integration of other meaningful therapeutic orientations such as an Existential/Humanistic approach (therapy addressing life goals, meaning and choices), psycho-dynamic, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) & Dialectical Behavior.