A licensed clinical social worker with a Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Marymount University, a dual Master’s degree in special education and childhood education from Long Island University, and a Master’s degree in social work from Fordham University. For over 20 years Crystal has dedicated her career to helping families, adults, and children of all ages by utilizing evidence-based practices.

At the beginning of her career, Crystal specialized in providing one-to-one in-home Applied Behavioral Analysis to children with autism. She also provided family trainings designed to help families be able to generalize skills learned in sessions. Crystal developed a training manual used to assist in these trainings. She also developed an eating program for those children who had a limited diet due to food sensitivities and digestive issues. Crystal also worked as an Educational Consultant working in special education classrooms providing consultation services to teachers and teaching assistants.

Later in her career, Crystal worked as a Children’s Counselor for a domestic violence agency providing therapy to children and their mothers to help them heal from the trauma experienced in the home. Crystal enhanced the children’s program at the agency by developing children’s groups for all ages, parent training groups, and scheduling outings which created the opportunity for families to relax and have fun. Crystal provided outreach services to schools, various religious institutions, and business to educate the community on the issue of domestic violence. After seven years as the Children’s Counselor, Crystal was promoted to Residential Director of the agency’s emergency shelter.

From 2014-2019, Crystal worked for the Phelps Hospital inpatient behavioral rehabilitation program. This program is an intensive twenty-one-day treatment program assisting those with cooccurring substance abuse and mental health issues such as Depression, Bipolar Disorder, PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Schizophrenia. While working in the program, Crystal provided individual counseling and assisted with development of treatment plans and discharge planning. The last two years at Phelps, Crystal worked as an Admissions Coordinator for the program. In this role, Crystal conducted clinical assessments to those interested in attending the program to ensure that he or she is clinically and medically able to participate in the program. In 2019 Crystal took her experience and skills and went into private practice full time.

Crystal believes in a person-centered integrative approach to counseling. She believes in utilizing community resources helps to maximize therapeutic benefit. Crystal’s therapeutic process involves working together to build a relationship of trust and explore and identify issues to be addressed. She utilizes such therapeutic tools as journaling, guided visualization, play therapy, sand tray, and other modalities to increase self-awareness and confidence to step outside your comfort zone.