About Patricia L. Field, Ph.D.
Patricia L. Field, Ph.D treats clients who need anxiety and depression treatment in LA, California. She is a licensed psychologist and psychotherapist with years of treating patients who have shown emotional abuse, depression, eating disorders and signs of extreme anxiety. With her office located in the area of Brentwood,Los Angeles CA, she ensures that clients have the confidentiality and treatment needed to get the emotional and mental balance that leads to a healthy life.
If you are going through low self-esteem, emotions of bereavement, an overeating disorder or any other type of emotional distress that does not allow you to have a normal or healthy lifestyle or personal relationship, you can undergo psychotherapy treatment. An experienced psychotherapist will help you analyze the problem and find a solution to bring you back to feeling better about your life.
For 30 years, I've been helping people face various challenges in their lives. The people who come to see me want something in their lives to change. Maybe it's an unhappy relationship, or they're anxious or depressed, or they're still living with their parents and confused and afraid about becoming independent from their families. They're probably feeling stuck in some specific aspects of their lives. When you come to see me, we work together to better understand what your particular problems are, and how and when these issues started. The people who seek out therapy are often repeating behavioral and emotional patterns, and/or relationship patterns that first began in their childhood. My role is to help you become more aware of what is keeping you stuck. In my developing a safe, trusting, confidential relationship with you, you are given the opportunity to heal from emotional pain, and explore options with me regarding your future.
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||||| CLIENTS
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While the symptoms my clients experience may well fit the criteria for diagnoses such as Major Depression or Generalized Anxiety Disorder, I do not treat diagnoses. I help people. I have been trained in most therapeutic techniques, but I do not impose a particular treatment on my clients. I work with them in a manner they find helpful – one that is suited to each client's personal style and interest. At times, with my clients, we look at their earlier relationship to see how those impacted them in the present. At other times, my clients and I deal only with a particular situation or relationship with which the client is struggling. Everyone has different needs and different goals.
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||||| THERAPY STYLE
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In my practice, I work with adults who are feeling troubled about life. For instance, they might be unhappy with what they have achieved in their profession or personal relationships. They may be experiencing anxiety or depressed moods. They may find themselves emotionally over-sensitive to life events. They may feel out of control and have trouble relating to others.
Some clients don't have specific goals. They just want to understand themselves better. They may want to better understand experiences in their lives. Some people take the dictum “know thyself” very seriously and stay in therapy for more than a year. Other people will deal with a particular situation and then move-on.
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||||| EMOTIONAL ABUSE
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I have treated many women who have experienced the pain of disappointing, dysfunctional, and even destructive relationships. Helping women recover from emotional and other forms of non-physical abuse is one of my specialties. Although the emphasis over recent years has been on domestic violence between partners, there is another far more insidious, subtle, and equally destructive process that often occurs in relationships. The nuances of this abuse may be emotional, mental, or verbal in nature, or any combination thereof. I think some of you may have felt ignored, or mistreated, or even abused at home, but you don't know why. You have not been physically harmed, and objects in the house have not been thrown, but your self-esteem and spirit have taken a beating. Emotional abuse can take the form of controlling behavior; manipulation; bullying; intimidation; gaslighting, in which one partner attempts to make the other feel as if they are going crazy; poisoning children against the other parent, also seen as parental alienation; and withholding love and affection, and/or ignoring one's partner, which, in extreme, is the silent treatment. The most direct and typical abuse is verbal cruelty, which, despite playground taunts that "words can never hurt me," can be very damaging to hear, especially when spoken by an individual whom you love and trust.
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||||| SYMPTOMS OF DEPRESSION
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People experience depression in different ways and depression in you may look very different than depression in your neighbor. You do not have to have all of the symptoms of depression listed here to be considered depressed. A diagnosis of depression will depend on the number and the severity of your symptoms, among other factors. Also, if you are a parent, it is important to know that childhood or teenage depression may look different than adult depression. With children and teen depression, irritability may be the primary sign of depression, not a depressed mood.
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||||| ARE YOU DEPRESSED?
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If you think you are depressed, remember it is treatable. As mentioned above, research shows that a combination of talk therapy and anti-depressants is the best treatment for most people. However, only you know what you are comfortable with. Some people choose to work it out by themselves, but most people benefit from some assistance. I recommend you investigate both therapy and medicine in order to determine what works for you.
I would be happy to talk with you about what you are experiencing and how I may be able to help you through therapy. When treating depression, I draw from a variety of therapeutic approaches, tailoring the treatment to the needs and desires of each client. If you would like to learn more about my approach to therapy, please call me.
Currently, many therapists use a cognitive-behavioral approach to treating depression. While I do use elements of cognitive-behavioral therapy, I do not believe it is complete on its own and in fact, studies show that the positive gains made with cognitive-behavioral therapy by itself are only short-term. In order to make a more lasting change for my clients, I incorporate elements of positive psychology, experiential therapy, attachment theory, humanistic therapy and other approaches, depending on the client. No one thing works for everyone, and it has been my experience that being able to draw from a spectrum of different techniques allows me to work successfully with a variety of people.
I warmly invite you to schedule an initial confidential evaluation.
Sincerely, Dr. Patricia Field Ph.D