About Dr. Patti-Joy Higgins
- Taking small steps to change your thoughts & actions, you can transform your life & relationships. You can change core negative beliefs, replace them with healthier beliefs, develop healthy coping skills and habits, learn & practice ways to improve overall well-being & functioning.
- Visit Higgins Counseling's wellbeing apps with interactive self-help tools, interactive exercises, and games: Pawsitive-Psychology & Pawsitive-Coach & Mindful-Paws
- Also, please check out Dr. Higgins' book on Amazon or Kindle: Pawsitive Affirmations from Rescued Pet Therapy Dogs.
I'm an empathic listener offering you a safe sounding board and nurturing validation. This acceptance can help motivate you to prioritize goals, use healthy coping skills to self-soothe, balance mind-body connections, & guide personal change. My style helps clients to increase their positive experiences, gratitude, hope, and resilience which often translates into improved mental health. I believe many clients benefit from guidance to tap into their own strengths, talents, and inner wisdom. Often, clients learn skills such as: mindfulness, acceptance, self-efficacy, emotional regulation, distress tolerance, changing unhelpful thinking patterns, reframing negative thought patterns, practicing assertive communication skills and healthy boundary-setting, ways to improve relationships and their own self-worth and self-esteem. I have more than 20 years of experience providing compassionate client-centered counseling and continue to enhance my learning and training.
My clients can expect to gain hope, validation of feelings, motivation and strength to take steps forward to heal. Many make significant progress in healing and recovering from unresolved childhood issues, trauma, anxiety, depression, and grief. Others gather skills to accept and manage both challenges and opportunities of ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, learning disorders, and chronic symptoms.
* Currently my caseload is full as of May 2026 and I'm unsure when I will have openings at this time.
About My Therapy Methods and Techniques:
My therapy techniques involve flexibility, cooperation and collaboration to transform your outlook, moods, habits, and relationships. I offer CBT, DBT, ACT, walk and talk in nature, animal-assisted, behavioral, art, music, somatic, psychodrama & play therapy depending on your preferences & needs. I also have experience in EMDR and EFT therapy modalities. I have taken Levels 1, 2, and 3 of Laurel Parnell's Attachment-focused EMDR and am a member of the Parnell Institute's directory of trained therapist members. I also provide psychoeducation and role playing for improving communications that may help improve interpersonal skills.
There are many techniques I use to help in family therapy and couples' therapy. These include Compassionate Communications, Attachment Theory, the 5 Love Languages, Satir family sculpting, genograms, and the Gottman Method. Clients may improve couples and family relationships by learning and using Compassionate Communications (Non-violent Communications www.cnvc.org ), or by using the 5 love languages, integrating information about attachment styles, and the Gottman Method techniques to enhance relationship satisfaction.
*I am not an MD and cannot prescribe medications. I am licensed in CA.
About Insurance, Client Portals Electronic Records and Billing:
If you would like to verify private medical insurance coverage prior to appointments and set up credit card profile for copayments, please go to Headway Provider portal or Grow Therapy portals. Please verify that Headway or Grow Therapy can process your insurance with me at provider info & insurance verification.
Most Telehealth and in-person appointments, consents, releases of information, electronic health records, and any homework assignments for reading or journaling will be maintained using Simple Practice patient portal.