In her practice, Priscilla takes into account the whole person. She focuses on developing a strong and trusting connection with her clients in an authentic pursuit of supporting them to navigate through whatever season may be rolling into their life. Priscilla creates an environment that allows for genuine and meaningful explorations that address fears, change patterns of behavior, challenge irrational beliefs, and build courage, all through the integration of her expertise in a variety of treatment modalities. Priscilla firmly believes that psychotherapy is more than just a place to come to vent and feel validated. Priscilla believes that as a psychotherapist, she has an obligation to not only support and validate her clients, but to also ensure that her clients walk out of her office with newfound knowledge, strategies, tools, and hope to face the struggles that brought them in to begin with.
Priscilla has dedicated over 18 years of her life to the helping profession by supporting youth, young adults, and families to face and manage turbulent struggles in their life journeys. For the past 15 years, Priscilla has focused on clinical services and has subsequently excelled in her treatment of what she considers to be a very special and worthy population. Priscilla earned her Masters in Social Work from the University of Southern California and has demonstrated a commitment to serve the lives of others throughout her positions in non-profit agencies, community mental health clinics, correctional facilities, education organizations + schools, group homes and in her ongoing volunteer work. Priscilla has experience working with foster youth, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated populations, students in school settings, substance use, depression, anxiety, trauma and grief + loss. Throughout her career, Priscilla has not only honed her direct practice skills, she has also been responsible for leading and managing mental health teams across the Orange County Department of Education in alternative education settings, including correctional settings. Her unique abilities to not only do powerful work one-on-one with her clients, but to also see the bigger picture, develop programs, train and teach other professionals, and her passion for influencing positive change in larger systems make her an outstanding ally, advocate, and most importantly: therapist. Priscilla is the perfect blend of skill, passion, humor, and warmth.
Priscilla is skilled in individual therapy, conjoint therapy, family therapy, and group therapy. She is also bilingual, Spanish speaking. Her areas of expertise include co-occurring disorders, substance use disorders, depression, anxiety and trauma. She has trained law enforcement personnel, educators, and interns on topics ranging from trauma informed care, trauma responsive schools, mental health treatment, crisis intervention, school based mental health, substance abuse treatment, and managing the impact of vicarious trauma + secondary traumatic stress. Priscilla is also a trained crisis responder and incident leader in Critical Incident Stress Management and serves to support the community when traumatic incidents occur across Orange County.
Priscilla is a trained Brainspotting therapist and is equipped to provide this extremely effective and innovative brain-based therapy to address challenges including years of accumulated complex trauma, anxiety, addiction and much more. Priscilla is committed to healing and Brainspotting is a powerful, focused treatment method that works by identifying, processing and releasing core neurophysiological sources of emotional/body pain, trauma, dissociation and a variety of other challenging symptoms. Brainspotting has proved that where we look affects how we feel, so we integrate your visual field with Biolateral sound to activate the subcortical brain and allow deep and effective processing.
Priscilla is a mentor to many and is also passionate about training the next generation of clinicians to hold her same values of competence, integrity, ethics, and compassion. As a result, Priscilla continues to serve as a clinical supervisor for unlicensed clinicians and for unlicensed interns completing their graduate education and training. Priscilla also remains active in her community, volunteering her time and remains dedicated to a life of service.
*Hablo español
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Priscilla is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, LCS 28693, in the State of California. Contact Priscilla: Via email at pward@therapycompassrose.com – Via telephone at 657.900.7252