Welcome!

What’s New!

  • If you are feeling in crisis due to the impact of the COVID-19 virus, please contact me for a free phone consultation (585) 432-0313. If I am not available in a timely manner, please call the hotline 211. ~ Catherine
  • Alleviate Anxiety Group sessions begin on March 19, 2020. Click here for details.
  • My interactive Alleviate Your Anxiety course is now live! Cleveland Emotional Health Courses

“Welcome! I’m glad you found me! My name is Catherine Cleveland M.S., LMHC-P, and I am here to help. As your counselor, I will provide a private, safe, and compassionate setting with a collaborative approach as you navigate through life’s challenges. Cleveland Emotional Health is conveniently located at 61 Main Street, Suite #4 in Geneseo, New York, 30 minutes south of Rochester. However, if you do not live in the area, have mobility or transportation problems, I also welcome online video sessions (telemental health). No matter what you’re going through, whether it is pain, depression, anxiety, trauma, or PTSD, there is hope. Please contact me to set up a session today!”

Don’t forget to visit my blog, the Wisdom Room! In this blog, you will find a lot of insightful information to help develop more curiosity into human nature and to realize that you are not alone in your distress!

61 Main St # 4, Geneseo, NY 14454 For more information text or call (585) 432-0313 Email me: clevelandemotionalhealth@gmail.com

Reasons to Consider Me as Your Counselor

Counseling

  • Choosing a counselor is an important decision. Reaching out almost always brings up anxiety – will they understand me? Can I trust this person with my thoughts, feelings? Will they really be able to help me? Everyone shares these questions in one form or another. Regardless if you had therapy in the past, or this may be your first time, it can be difficult to take that first step! I am a kind, strengths-based, compassionate, and nonjudgmental counselor.
  • As your counselor, I will create a space for you to safely and privately express your problems and personal pain. 
  • To enhance your counseling experience, I encourage you to text, email me, or use your personal online journal (in your secure client portal) between sessions to help you express your thoughts in the moment.

My Specialties

  • I specialize in treating clients that have been traumatized at some point in their life. Trauma has a way of staying with us for a lifetime if not properly processed. Managing trauma symptoms including, anxiety, depression, low self-worth, suicidality, and hypervigilance (otherwise labeled as ADHD, overactive nerves, disruptive moods, or conduct disorder) are not effective in the long term. Processing symptoms rather than only “managing” and “coping” with symptoms are key to psychological healing. 
  • I specialize in helping clients better understand their chronic pain. Many do not realize that physical and psychological pain impacts the same brain regions as physical injury. The means, regardless of whether the source of your pain, biogenic, psychogenic, or both, your pain is real. If your pain issues are not getting resolved medically, you may want to consider how the effects of stress or trauma are manifesting as physical pain.

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My Continuing Education

  • I graduated (with honors) and hold a master’s degree from the University of Rochester in mental health counseling.
  • I am a current doctoral student at the University of Rochester. I am honored to be in my second year at the University of Rochester’s Warner School’s esteemed Ph.D. program, Counseling and Counseling Education. My Ph.D. program keeps me up-to-date on interventions and treatments on evidence-based practices, and practice-based evidence. 
  • I have the great fortune to train with and be supervised by many of the best researchers and educators in the field. These distinguished individuals include Dr. Andre Marquis (my advisor), Dr. Doug Guiffrida (my mentor), and Jennifer Farah of Global Therapy (my clinical supervisor).

My Research Interests

  • My research interests relate to how the mind and body are connected, how distress impacts the central nervous system and the long-term effects of emotional neglect. Our physical reactions to distress often go unnoticed (neuroception), which can result in lifelong physical health issues, including chronic pain, depression, anxiety, mood, and personality disorders.
  • In Addition, I am currently studying how the theory of constructed emotion neurologically differs from the classical theories of basic emotions delineating any implications on contemporary experiential dynamic therapy. 

Help for Your Mental Health Needs

  • I use interventions that heal the underlying cause of the problem, rather than just trying to cope and manage symptoms.
  • I offer you a choice of in-office or online video sessions. Coming to my office will provide a more personalized experience. However, video counseling gives you the convenience of distance counseling, no matter where your location. 
  • I am private pay, which keeps your information secure and private. Private pay also gives you control of your treatment options, including frequency and duration.

Other Important Considerations

My Fees

  • I charge $100 per session. I am often not covered by insurance. Most of the people in my practice pay completely out-of-pocket. Reimbursement from your flexible spending account is generally not a problem, but actual insurance coverage seems to hinge on whether or not your plan has out of network provisions. Please check with your insurer in advance, so you know where you stand.
  • I offer block therapy sessions. Block sessions are 2 or 3 hours in duration (you choose the duration and charges will be adjusted based on $100. per hour). The block approach works best when patients are interested in more intensive therapy and believe that one-hour sessions are not enough.
  • Groups are $15.00 per session. Groups typically consist of 5-8 members. If you would like to join a group, a regular commitment is requested to build and maintain trust and cohesiveness.

My Limitations

  • I do not specialize in counseling clients under the age of 14.
  • I am qualified to work with a wide variety of clients and problems, but sometimes I may not have the training needed to address a particular concern. If this is the case, I will discuss it with you and make sure that you receive a referral to another professional who is better qualified to serve you. If you do not want to explore how personality dynamics, personal history, and internal conflicts that may contribute to your problems, I may not be the best counselor for you. Also, if you are having current hallucinations/delusions, severe thoughts of suicide or self-harm, or extreme Bipolar mood swings you may need more support than I can offer you through weekly psychotherapy, and I reserve the right to refer you to a different or more intensive treatment if I believe you exceed the level of care I can offer.

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Interventions

The therapeutic interventions that I most commonly use (but not limited to) are:

Short-term dynamic (Habib Davanloo) – as an integrative experiential dynamic approach. This intervention facilitates the rapid resolution of a broad spectrum of emotional distress. Short-term dynamic interventions are specifically designed to heal issues such as anxiety, depression, and somatization disorders (such as chronic pain), PTSD, and more severe psychosis. This collaborative intervention alleviates a variety of self-harming behaviors, many of which derive from traumatic experiences including unstable or troubled early life attachments (emotional neglect, verbal abuse, physical & sexual abuse, and assault).

Internal systems (Richard Schwartz) – Identifies different protective parts of the self, non-judgmentally, with awareness and compassion. More severe protective parts such and anger, control issues, emotional pain (depression & anxiety), and visual flashbacks can often be a reaction to a continuum of past traumatic experiences. Your protective parts have evolved to help you protect yourself and avoid harmful memories of trauma. However, they now may be disrupting your present situation including work, school, family, fun activities, and relationships.

Strengths-based (Donald Clifton) – Focuses on your attributes rather than your weaknesses. Helping you identify your strengths that you may not have previously considered. For example, a strength that you have is taking steps to address issues to improve your mental health.

Mindfulness-based (Jon Kabat-Zinn; Joe Dispenza) – Mindfulness is a method of non-judgmentally paying attention to yourself and your environment. With practice, you will be able to notice the amount of energy you spend on ruminating or anxious thoughts (possibly disrupting your quality of sleep). Mindfulness-based interventions develop present moment and intrapsychic awareness thus diminishing uncontrolled intrusive and self-judging thoughts.

Polyvagal mapping (Stephen Porges) – Polyvagal mapping explains how neuroception (unconscious perceiving) affects the nervous system. How do you react to situations that you perceive to be distressing? For example, fight (anger, temper) flight (avoidance), or freeze (depressing, shutting down). Somatic (physical) symptoms such as anxiety and depression are directly related to your central nervous system through vagus nerve stimulation. Environmental and intrapersonal triggers related to PTSD, chronic pain, and social anxiety can be processed and healed through mapping (intrapsychic focus) the vagal nervous system.