Contact Information

I currently have a private practice as an outpatient therapist at:
Integrative Psychological & Assessment Services
4565 Ruffner Street, Suite 108
San Diego, CA 92111
Office (858) 268-9800
Toll free (866) 804-5538

There are many reasons an adult or child may seek counseling:

As we begin life there is the hope that it will be filled with happiness and that we will have support from others when we need it, that we will be able to trust the people around us not to cause us hurt, and that we will have the skills to overcome the obstacles that do arise. This is not often the case and that is when we turn to others for help to guide us through these difficult times.
Many people (adults and children) seek counseling due to:
• having a depressed, anxious, irritable, or unpredictable mood
• relationship issues with significant people in their lives
• stresses due overwhelming them from many different sources
• coping with a loss or change in their life
Parents may seek counseling for their child or adolescent for a variety of reasons including:
• traumatic effects of child abuse
• coping with the death of a loved one
• adjustment to parental separation or divorce
• difficulty interacting safely or appropriately with their peers
• difficulties due to ADHD
• oppositional and defiant behaviors
• angry temper tantrums or violent outbursts
• difficulty expressing emotions appropriately or effectively
Adolescents often have difficulty coping with:
• balancing their new sense of independence with the support they still need from their parents
• questions they may have about their sexual orientation
Parents themselves may be seeking guidance about:
• how to intervene or help their child with these issues
• support with questions about if their child’s or adolescent’s behaviors are normal
• needing help navigating the school systems to get their child’s needs met
Families may be having a hard time communicating in ways that do not lead to conflicts.
Sometimes we need support with a current situation in our lives and other times we need to deal with something that happened in the past. There are also times when nothing seems to go right and we need some immediate crisis intervention either for ourselves or to help us cope with a difficult relationship.
When these times arise it is important to find the right support to meet you or your child’s needs. I will work creatively to help you or your child increase awareness of the problems in your lives by exploring thoughts and feelings, enhancing the use of the senses, emphasizing self-nurturing experiments, using expressive arts techniques, and developing a nurturing and compassionate relationship to help you or your child feel better and improve the quality of your lives, your relationships, and your future.
I have post-graduate training in play therapy, gestalt therapy, expressive arts, and techniques for working with how the body holds in emotions and stress such as trauma releasing exercises, relaxation skills, and yoga therapy with children and adolescents.
I feel the key is developing our therapeutic relationship with you or your child in order to work with these strategies to allow expression of thoughts and feelings in order to let what is inside out and to increase awareness of patterns that are no longer working for you or your child. These techniques also enhance coping strategies to help you or your child to appropriately express emotions and enhance your self-esteem by gaining a sense of mastery.

Professional Experience and Training

My clinical experience has specialized in working with children, adolescents, families, and adults. I earned a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology and Masters of Social Work at San Diego State University. I interned for a year at UCSD Gifford/Outpatient Clinic working with adults who were dually diagnosed and a year at Rady Children’s Hospital Outpatient Psychiatry offering outpatient therapy to children, adolescents, and their families. I then worked at The San Diego Center for Children in a residential treatment program for six years as a therapist for emotionally disturbed children, young adolescents, and their families. These children and their families often had experienced sexual, verbal, and/or physical abuse and/or severe neglect and abandonment.
In these settings I gained experience doing individual, group, and family therapy, working with parents on parenting difficulties, helping parents navigate the school systems to get their children’s needs met with teachers or through IEP meetings, and connecting families with other needed community resources.

Fun ways to control your anger!

Letting out your anger can be fun. Often anger is something people get into trouble for or wish they did not feel causing us to hold it in. When we hold in anger, though, it builds up and eventually we explode, just like a balloon that gets too full of air pops. It makes sense then that letting out your anger is important when it is small so that you don't explode and say things you will later regret or hurt someone or yourself. There are many fun and creative ways to get out anger that kids and even adults may use such as:
**Blowing all your angry breaths into balloons and popping them (just blowing them up makes you take in deep breaths). Make sure to pop it in a safe and apporitate place- it tends to be loud!
**Making what you are mad at out of playdoh or clay, telling it how you feel, and then you can smash it or destroy it.
**Drawing what you are mad at and ripping it up or smashing it into a ball and throwing it at the wall.
**Writing what you are mad about on a small piece of paper and then taping the paper to the bottom of your shoes and go for an angry walk to stomp it out.
**Screaming into your pillow or hitting your mattress.
**Ripping up old junk mail or newspapers.
**Yelling in the shower (you can even get a wet wash cloth and throw it agianst the wall inside the shower).
**Telling a stuffed animal how you feel as if they were what you were mad at.
There are many many other ways to let it out. See what you can think of!

Posted by Reina Remy, LCSW 1 comments

Relaxation Skills: Deep Breathing

This is a series of relaxation and other coping skills to use when angry, hyperactive, anxious, or just to reduce you stress level.
(Use these activities when you need to calm yourself down. Remember that these often need to be done repeatedly and daily to help.)
Deep breathing: While practicing these count (in your head) to 4 as you breath in and hold the breath for a second and then count to 6 as you breath out. When you breathe in imagine you just walked into your kitchen and are smelling cookies that just got out of the oven.
Belly breath: Breath in and out through you nose while pretending there is a colored balloon in you stomach and you are slowing filling it up with each in breath and empty it out with every out breath.
Hot breath: Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth while making a “HA” sound. This is similar to what you do on a cold day to warm up your hands.
Cool breath: Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth as if you are blowing onto hot soup or a hot drink.
Sipping breath: Breathe in through you mouth with your tongue rolled or with your tongue on the roof of your moth, which makes a kind of sipping noise and breathe out through your nose.
Ocean breath: Breath in and out through your nose as you have your tongue at the back of you throat and feel your breath roll down your throat and down your body.
See how long you can hum with one breath and then try to beat you record.
Blow bubbles: see how big of a bubble you can blow.
Blow on a pinwheel and see how slow you can blow and still maker it spin or how long you can make it turn in one breath.
Posted by Reina Remy, LCSW 2 comments
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