Carly Rushton, AMFT

 I have experience working with children facing grief/loss, anxiety, ADHD, abuse, and behavioral concerns that impact the home, school, and social settings. Using my clinical expertise, I have also supported teens and young adults from diverse backgrounds, genders, and cultures. I have a passion for helping people establish healthy boundaries, explore identity formation, and navigate interpersonal and familial issues, codependency, PTSD, depression, anxiety, anger management, sexual assault, and suicidal ideation.

The quality of the therapeutic relationship is a strong predictor of successful treatment. Using a bio-psycho-social approach, I take time to genuinely understand you, attuning to your goals and needs to ensure you feel safe, heard, and seen. It takes courage to share your story. Doing so in a supportive environment that goes at your desired pace has potential for profound healing.

I use a holistic approach that includes client-centered and psychodynamic therapy, attachment theory, M-CBT, DBT, and parent-child behavioral work. I often incorporate neuropsychology  (mind/body) psychoeducation, and complementary non-traditional talk therapies such as age-appropriate art, nature, and play-based approaches. I have found non-traditional therapies can help us safely process traumatic experiences in new ways and build connections between difficult emotions and how it’s communicated physically and mentally in our behaviors and internal schemas.

It’s normal to respond in ways that are representative of what we learned in early childhood, even if these ways don’t help us now as adults. I respect the courage it takes to begin a journey towards meaningful change and look forward to seeing how we might work together.

I earned my Master’s in Counseling Psychology from USF. I am pre-licensed and receive clinical supervision from Diana Samardzic, Psy.D.