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Courtney Carey, LCSW

Courtney Carey, LCSW

For over 20 years I have dedicated my career to working with children, teens, young adults, and their families who have struggled with mental health challenges. While working in a variety of settings including private practice, emergency, hospital, school, and home-based settings, I honed my skills to be able to provide exemplary clinical care to young people and families as they make strides in becoming the best version of themselves.

 

This extensive clinical experience gives me the background to quickly identify treatment plans that will be most effective for each person’s unique situation. Parents consider me a trusted consultant and advisor, and I am able to connect easily and build trust with children, teens and young adults. I strongly believe that all people have the ability to learn and thrive and I provide you with the guidance to achieve concrete growth and change.

 Presentations and Awards: 

  • 2015 Hubie Jones Urban Service Award from Boston University School of Social Work 

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  • Invited speaker: Teaching More than Academics to Traumatized Youth: Domus' Family Advocate Model in Schools.  Healing the Generations 3rd Annual Family Violence and Child Trauma Conference, Foxwood Resort, CT

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  •  Invited speaker on: Creating Harmony in the Co-Facilitation Relationship.  Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups, International Symposium, San Diego, CA

Background & Experience

I received my MSW from Boston University and completed my training at Boston Children’s Hospital, the primary pediatric teaching hospital for Harvard Medical School. I have a substantial background in helping people to heal from psychological trauma and adversity through my training in EMDR and trauma informed care. I am committed to on-going professional development in order to stay at the cutting edge of proven therapeutic methods. 

 

I attend conferences on a regular basis and feel energized to bring new learning into my clinical practice. For thirteen years I served as the Chief Clinical Officer of a non-profit organization that operated several schools for young people with social and emotional challenges. In this role, I developed programs, supervised and trained staff, and provided direct services to those in need. I have a previous teaching appointment at Columbia University School of Social Work and have taught college level group dynamics courses as well as supervised many graduate level trainees in their clinical field work assignments. 

Evidence Based Therapeutic Treatments

Depending on the concern that you or your child brings to therapy, I draw from a variety of treatment approaches to develop a plan that will be most effective for your unique situation. In each case, I operate from a trauma-informed, culturally responsive, relational, and attachment-based framework. This means that I recognize the importance of peoples' unique identities, backgrounds, stories and relationships.  I support you and/or your child in applying skills in your current relationships such as managing emotions, communicating effectively, expressing gratitude, noticing what is going well, approaching conflict as an opportunity for growth and letting go and forgiving. I draw from the following modalities: 

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  • CBT – Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is effective in helping you understand the connection between your thoughts, emotions and behaviors. Interventions involve increasing self-awareness and shifting perspective when needed in order to approach rather than avoid your challenges. 

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  • DBT – Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is used to help regulate emotions and build distress tolerance skills.

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  • EMDR – Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an approach to therapy that allows you to re-process traumatic memories in a healthier way, so you can call up the memory without the same level of disturbance. This type of therapy helps you to build up your capacity to tolerate distress using imagery, relaxation, and mindfulness

 

  • Play Therapy - Children express feelings best through the language of play and can build a sense of confidence in their feelings by projecting using art, toys, dolls and games. 

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  • Mindfulness based therapies - encourage us to approach feelings with kindness and curiosity while staying in the present rather than ruminating about the past or worried about the future 

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  • Motivational Interviewing - A counseling approach that helps you to examine and resolve mixed feelings about change

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