Congratulations on taking the first step! Sometimes just getting in the door can be the hardest part. In reality, you have already been through the hardest part, you lived through the pains of your life. With help in counseling, all that remains is removing the clutter that was left behind and entering into wholeness and freedom. I see counseling as an exciting time of self discovery, freedom, and personal growth. Coming to counseling is a sign of hope. Working together in the therapeutic alliance, this hope will increase as you find your core self and take hold of the life you were meant to live, full of freedom and passion for what you want out of life. While there may be difficult areas of life to confront in counseling, freedom will come as these areas are brought into the light and processed with gentle care in the therapeutic alliance. I see the therapeutic alliance as extremely important. My task as the counselor is to work myself out of a job. I do this by empowering you with tools that spring board you into deeper paths of self discovery that you can do on your own at any hour of the day or night. My legal name is Sabrina Hanson, but I go by Veronica. I received a Bachelor Degree’s in Science in Social Work at Florida State University in 2002 and a Master’s Degree in Art in Mental Health Counseling at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio in 2016. I am licensed in Texas and Ohio. In Texas, I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor. In Ohio, I am a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and a Licensed Independent Chemical Dependency Counselor. I am specialized in addiction and trauma. I have received training in the following areas: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), Instinctual Trauma Response Model, Internal Family Systems Therapy, Nutrition and Mental Health, Telehealth, and Addiction Counseling. These areas of expertise will be explained in greater depth as time goes on so it is okay if you don’t know exactly what they are. For now, simply know that I have lots of training to help care for you in the areas of trauma, anxiety, and addiction. While I am an eclectic counselor, the primary treatment approach I will be using is Internal Family Systems Therapy. This treatment approach will help you to learn how to access your core self and look at your emotions and thoughts in ways that will empower you to become the person you always wanted to be. It is an evidence based treatment approach that has been statistically helpful for countless people with varying types of emotional struggles. It is my mission as a counselor to work toward helping the whole person, mind, body, and soul. This is the reason I have been trained in so many different areas. I am continuously striving to be equipped with more tools that can help in the process of achieving greater freedom and wholeness. With each new modality that I learn, I have sought to receive counseling myself in these areas so that I can better explain these approaches to clients. The most important thing I would say to you as the client is that feedback is important. While I may have excellent training and a heart of gold to help you, you know yourself better than I do. I need you to help me help you. As you tell me through feedback what is helpful and not I can then personally tailor the treatment approach to meet your needs. I have many tools in my tool bag. Together we will find the tools that your particular person benefits from the most. This is the therapeutic alliance. Together we will go into the dark areas of your life that you want healed from and come to greater healing and wholeness. The journey will be taken together. You are not alone in this journey. My goal isn’t to get you to a place of healing alone, it is to get you to a place where you thrive. I am excited to go on this journey with you and to get to know you better. For now, I encourage you to take a breathe, rest in the knowledge that the hardest work is already behind you, and know that you are capable of freedom and fulfillment in life.