Archive | Counseling with ADHD Focus

Victoria Leister, M.S., NCC

Victoria Leister, M.S., NCC

Tori Leister, MS, NCC, has a Master’s Degree in Counseling and is a Play Therapist Mentee working under the supervision of Licensed Professional Counselor Elizabeth Campbell.

Tori offers individual counseling and family check-ins to clients aged 3-18. She describes her counseling style and presence as warm, attentive, empowering, and client-led. She works with clients experiencing anxiety, life/developmental transitions, behavioral concerns, interpersonal difficulties, and emotion dysregulation. She offers play therapy as well as strengths-based, client-focused, neurodiverse-affirming counseling and support.

Experience

Tori began her journey within the mental health field in a community mental health facility in 2022. Her experience includes an after-school intensive outpatient group counseling program for children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Through this program, clients gained valuable social, emotion regulation, coping, and life skills. Tori recognizes therapeutic relationship-building, with clients and with other members of the client’s support team, as a core determinant of client progress.

Tori also worked in a private, emotional support school — for children whose home school districts lacked the resources necessary to meet their emotional needs. This role cemented Tori’s belief in the therapeutic importance of connection over correction. She understands that all behaviors are attempts to meet unmet needs and that children can and will learn and grow in an environment of emotional safety. Tori also provided individual outpatient therapy to child and teen clients with a variety of presenting concerns.

She draws from various therapeutic approaches, including trauma-informed, attachment-based, play therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), customizing treatment to meet clients’ unique needs.


Specialties

Play Therapy

The primary task of childhood is play. Tori believes in the power of play because of its universal understanding and application, as well as the ability of play to promote healing and growth in children (and with people of all ages). Play therapy is the preferred therapy approach for children 3-12 because it offers children the space and tools to express and process difficult emotions, develop strong interpersonal relationships, problem-solve, and communicate in a developmentally-affirming way. What children cannot yet express or understand with their words, they can process through their play. In play therapy, children have the additional support of a play therapist who offers acceptance, presence, and evidence-based knowledge to empower clients toward growth and discovery.

“Toys are children’s words and play is their language.”
— Garry Landreth, Author of Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship

Adolescent Counseling

Adolescence is a time of immense physical, mental, and emotional growth. While this can be exciting for some young people, others feel overwhelmed by this stage of life. Tori’s approach to adolescent clients is considerate of this change in body and mind. One of Tori’s therapeutic strengths is tailoring therapy interventions and activities to meet clients where they are developmentally. She prioritizes creating a safe space for clients to explore their evolving identities and interpersonal relationships. Tori also provides support to parents who may feel overwhelmed or unequipped to handle their tween or teen’s emotional intensity, novelty-seeking, and desire for independence.

“Adolescence is not a period of being ‘crazy’ or ‘immature.’ It is an essential time of emotional intensity, social engagement, and creativity.”
— Daniel J. Siegel, Author of Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain

Behavioral Approaches

Tori’s background working with clients with Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, ODD, and other behavioral concerns has provided her with a functional behavior perspective. Tori believes that every behavior is a form of communication and is an attempt to meet an unmet need (e.g. sense of belonging, sensory stimulation, emotion regulation, independence, or escape). Children and teens may not have the understanding or vocabulary to communicate their needs to adults; as a result, they seek to meet their needs on their own through behaviors (sometimes very challenging ones).

Tori has experience and knowledge in managing challenging behaviors and providing clients with alternatives. By seeking to know the person and the needs beneath presenting behavior, clients feel seen and understood, rather than invalidated and reprimanded. Clients can then explore alternative, more effective ways of expressing and meeting their needs, which reduces the functionality of challenging behaviors.

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Allison Beer, MSW, LCSW

Allison Beer, MSW, LCSW

Allison Beer, MSW, LCSW

Allison is a licensed clinical social worker providing individual therapy to teens and adults.

Allison provides EMDR and Internal Family Systems therapy to individuals. Her approach is neurodiversity-affirming, trauma-informed, as well as collaborative, down-to-earth and nonjudgmental. At the core of her work is a belief in the transformative power of the therapeutic relationship. Allison believes that meaningful growth and healing are rooted in connection—which is why building strong, trusting partnerships with her clients is central to her practice.

Background

Allison’s journey in mental health began in community mental health and hospital settings, where she supported individuals facing addiction, crisis situations, and systemic barriers. She spent years working in victim services, supporting sexual assault survivors, all of which deepened her understanding of trauma. Beyond her clinical experience, She has also lived in intentional communities all around the world centered on mindfulness and yoga—experiences that continue to inform her holistic, person-centered approach to therapy, emphasizing connection, resilience, and the mind-body relationship.

In her role as therapist, she focuses on helping clients reconnect with themselves, build resilience, and move toward healing.

Specialties

Allison loves to support individuals navigating:

  • Anxiety & Depression
  • PTSD
  • Grief & Loss
  • Challenging life transitions
  • Relationship stressors
  • Low self-esteem
  • Struggles related to being neurodivergent (ADHD, Autistic, AuDHD, and more) in a world that caters itself to neurotypical minds

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

IFS is a research-backed therapy that helps you understand and heal all parts of yourself. We all have parts—some examples include inner critics, perfectionists, planners, strivers, and people-pleasers. Our parts aren’t bad; they’re simply trying to help or protect us, even if the impact of their behavior can be frustrating. Rather than pushing them away, IFS encourages us to get curious about our parts and our systems. As an IFS therapist, I help you build a deeper connection with these parts, cultivating healing, self-acceptance, and greater balance in your life.


Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy

EMDR is an evidence-based, trauma-focused therapy that follows an eight-phase structured approach to help the brain process distressing memories and reduce their emotional intensity. EMDR supports the nervous system in integrating past experiences so they feel less overwhelming. This process fosters deep healing, resilience, and lasting relief from trauma, anxiety, and other emotional challenges, empowering you to move forward with greater ease and clarity. Learn more about EMDR in this video.


Neurodiversity-Affirming Therapy

Neurodiversity-affirming therapy is about embracing and honoring neurodivergence (Including and not limited to Autism, ADHD, AuDHD, Dyslexia, etc) as a natural variation of human experience, not something to be fixed. It’s about accepting who you are, rather than trying to change you. In this approach, we focus on understanding and supporting you in navigating challenges, while valuing your unique strengths. The goal is to help you build confidence and self-compassion, so you can show up fully as yourself in a world that often misunderstands or marginalizes neurodivergent identities.

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Lucas Valitski, MS

Lucas Valitski, MS

Lucas Valitski, MS is a Master’s Level Counselor & Child-Centered Play Therapist.

Lucas specializes in child-centered play therapy for children aged 3–12, focusing on trauma, ADHD, and autism. Through a compassionate and empowering approach, he helps children navigate emotional challenges, develop resilience, and gain essential skills for emotional regulation and healing.

Experience

Lucas has  experience as a school therapist in the Philadelphia school district, where he provided individual and group counseling for students from kindergarten to 8th grade. During his time at Creative Health, he specialized in play therapy for children with trauma, ADHD, and autism, creating safe and supportive spaces for children to express themselves freely through play. Lucas is a Master’s level, pre-licensed Counselor working under the supervision of Elizabeth Campbell, LPC, as part of the Mentorship Program. He sees clients at both the Flourtown and Schwenksville offices.

Specialties

Lucas offers individual therapy focused on emotional regulation, enhancing communication and social skills, developing problem-solving abilities, and facilitating healing from trauma.

Neurodiversity: ADHD and Autism

Lucas specializes in neurodiversity and works closely with children with ADHD and autism, using play therapy as a valuable tool to help them express themselves and learn new skills. Lucas creates a nurturing environment for growth and development by tailoring his approach to the unique needs of each child. His ultimate goal is to provide children with the tools they need to gain confidence and successfully navigate the world around them.

Child-Centered Play Therapy

Lucas believes that play therapy engages a child’s natural imagination, providing a safe space for them to process significant events, work through emotions, and make sense of their surroundings. Through play, children develop key life skills like problem-solving, emotional regulation, communication, and social interaction. Lucas’ approach not only helps children navigate challenges, but it also builds resilience and confidence in a way that feels natural and enjoyable to them.

Cognitive Behavioral Play Therapy (CBPT)

Lucas also utilizes CBPT, a structured approach to play, to help children solve problems, build relationships, and develop emotional resilience. This method encourages cognitive and emotional growth while fostering positive behaviors and emotional regulation through playful exploration.

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Lindsay Roznowski, MA, LPC

Lindsay Roznowski is a Licensed Professional Counselor providing individual and family therapy to children, adolescents, and adults.

She specializes in trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapy and other trauma-focused treatments; therapeutic work with children and adolescents; family therapy; and yoga and mindfulness. Lindsay uses a client-centered, strengths-based, holistic approach that takes into account how things like family history, significant life experiences, and relationships contribute to who we are today.

She believes that building a positive, authentic connection between therapist and client is essential for the trust it takes to do life-changing therapeutic work together. Because of this, Lindsay works hard from the very first session to get to know each client, meet them where they are, and explore the full context of any issues or presenting problems. She believes that therapy should always be a collaborative process and views the treatment plan between client and therapist as a living document, informed and updated each session through the dynamic interplay of the therapeutic relationship.

Family Therapy

Lindsay began her career as a Family Based Therapist providing therapy for families based on her training in Structural Family Systems Therapy. She truly enjoys working to understand the full context of the family system, relational dynamics, and how best to support each family member in reaching their personal and family goals. Sessions may include a combination of full family sessions, parent/caregiver sessions, and individual sessions based on needs.

Therapeutic Work with Children and Adolescents

Lindsay spent eight years of her career working as a therapist at a high school; working with adolescents is one of her passions. She specializes in client-centered, creative therapy with children and adolescents. Lindsay loves getting to know each child/adolescent’s strengths and interests and developing creative therapeutic interventions based on that knowledge. Lindsay focuses on the client’s developmental stage, family history, strengths and interests, and her collaboration with caregivers supports her in tailoring the therapeutic experience to provide the best support possible.

Trauma-Focused Care

Lindsay works with individuals to process traumatic events in their lives and heal from that trauma. She uses her training to assess how a client’s trauma is affecting their current patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Lindsay is trained in a number of trauma-focused modalities including the Trauma Recovery and Empowerment Model (TREM), Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy (TFCBT), and Trauma Art Narrative Therapy.

Yoga and Mindfulness

Out of a need to provide more holistic offerings to her clients and because of her personal passion for yoga and mindfulness, Lindsay completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training in 2014. She used the knowledge she gained through this experience to better support her clients in learning about the mind-body connection and how yoga and mindfulness-based skills can calm the nervous system and support meaningful healing.

Therapeutic Groups and Workshops

Lindsay offers therapeutic groups and workshops in several areas, including experiential support groups for adolescents and programs on yoga and mindfulness for wellbeing.

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Carolyn Abele, MS, LPC

Carolyn is a Licensed Professional Counselor.

Carolyn received her Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from Northeastern University in Boston, MA and has been in practice over 12 years. She has been the Executive Director of a therapeutic school in Philadelphia for 8 years, working with schools, students and their families. Carolyn has also worked at a group practice in Springfield prior to moving to Montgomery County.

Her experience includes working with children, tweens, teens, new moms and families, addressing depression, anxiety, trauma, low self-esteem, building frustration tolerance, behavior management, navigating school challenges and parenting. She is trained in both Cognitive-Behavioral and Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral therapies.

Contact Carolyn

Contact Carolyn to learn more at CarolynAbeleTherapy@gmail.com or (215) 354-7941.

Individual and Family Counseling

Children, Tweens and Teens encounter stressors and challenges daily. Carolyn loves to work with these age groups to teach strategies and skills to manage anxiety, depression, anger, trauma, poor self-esteem, and peer conflicts, in the school setting or at home. Therapy sessions can be individual to address the challenges and skills, and/or include parents/guardians to reinforce skills to work on at home, between sessions. Therapy is most successful when clients know their goals, and have support to achieve them.

Behavior Support

Behavior challenges can impact the whole family.  When treating children with behavior challenges, Carolyn works with parents and siblings, offering support and techniques.   Behavior support plans for home and/or school can be key in improving a child’s functioning, relationships, self-esteem, confidence and overall success. Topics to tackle include opening lines of communication, creating healthy boundaries, and setting limits and consequences consistently. Carolyn and also support parents in accessing Special Education support if academic, emotional or behavior concerns qualifies student for supports in school.

New Parent Support

Adjusting to parenthood is a major transition in life, and can bring highs and lows. Pregnancy and becoming a new parent can bring up a lot of feelings that most women (men, too!) experience, but aren’t comfortable addressing openly. It is so important that new parents take time to take care of themselves, so they can be the best parent they can. Carolyn has experience working with women and couples to navigate this exciting, and sometimes difficult, transition.

Adoption Support

Carolyn has a certificate in Adoption from Rutgers University. Adoption can present unique challenges at key points in development for adopted children, their siblings and families. Carolyn can offer support around emotional and/or behavior issues that can affect a child’s typical development.

LPC Clinical Supervision

Carolyn offers clinical supervision for counselors earning hours towards their Licensed Professional Counselor PA state credential, as well as ongoing support for professional counselors.

Moms Club

Mom’s club is a supportive, stress free zone for moms to gather, learn tips tricks and information on topics such as development milestones, managing behaviors, how to promote healthy communication within the family, and to promote wellness for mom. Group meets monthly on Mondays during the day.

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Elizabeth Campbell, MS, LPC

Elizabeth Campbell is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor, and is certified in EMDR.

She provides Integrated play therapy, EMDR therapy, and supervision. She specializes in support for Highly Sensitive people, help for helpers, and EMDR therapy for a variety of needs.

I began my work in the counseling field in community mental health in a program that served children at risk for out of home treatment.

This gave me experience in crisis interventions, working with a variety of concerns in children and adults, and in family therapy. My work continued in victim services, where my knowledge of support for individuals that have experienced trauma expanded and my training in mindfulness as a tool for healing began. In the years that I have worked in private practice, my work with children, families, and individuals that have endured trauma has continued. I also specialize in working with Highly Sensitive People and children to support them in managing their unique strengths and challenges. I welcome child, adolescent, and adult clients experiencing depression, anxiety, PTSD, mood disorders, and issues surrounding grief and loss, transitions, abuse, and trauma.

In addition, as a Licensed Professional Counselor, RPT-S, and EMDR Consultant-in-Training, I am open to supporting counselors in expanding their professional knowledge and experience while they work towards licensure or certification.

My areas of expertise are child and family therapy, play therapy, parenting, trauma treatment, mindfulness, and a variety of treatment modalities grounded in humanistic counseling. I also specialize in blending IFS and EMDR as well as EMDR and play therapy. I am passionate about supporting helpers in building their awareness and prevention of vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue.

Play Therapy

The ability to express oneself is directly correlated with one’s developmental level. Therefore, children express themselves in much different ways than adults and require different therapeutic interventions than traditional talk therapy. Elizabeth provides a variety of mediums for children to express themselves through their language: play. She is trained in Child-Centered Play Therapy and in Eliana Gil’s Integrative Model of Play Therapy for children that experienced trauma. She also partners with parents in Filial Therapy, which builds strong relationships with children and supports parents in creating consistent structure at home.

Elizabeth Campbell's office

Elizabeth Campbell’s office

Creative Counseling for Adolescents

The developmental task of adolescents is to create a sense of identity. Elizabeth’s humanistic, client-centered, empowerment approach, founded in the individual’s strengths supports teenage clients in doing just this. Elizabeth also utilizes creative, mindful, and expressive strategies to engage teens and promote change inside and outside of sessions.

Trauma-Informed Care

In this approach to treatment, the clinician asks “what happened to you” rather than “what’s wrong with you.” Trauma impacts the whole individual. Elizabeth’s holistic, humanistic approach addresses the whole person and provides support in moving forward with one’s life.

Elizabeth is a certified sexual assault counselor and is trained in a variety of trauma-specific treatment modalities including EMDR Therapy, the Trauma Recovery and Empowerment Model (TREM), Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Trauma Art Narrative Therapy, and Eliana Gil’s Integrative Model of Play Therapy.

Elizabeth Campbell's office

Elizabeth Campbell’s office

Workshops and Mind-Body Treatment

Elizabeth has had the joy of combining a personal passion, yoga, with her professional path through workshops and groups to bring yogic principles into treatment and subsequently, into one’s life. Elizabeth runs ongoing groups and workshops that address emotional healing through a combination of yoga and therapy as well as bringing these and mindfulness principles into individual sessions.

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