Amy Sanchez

Evidence-based therapy solutions to take control of your mental health

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Vegan Clinical Psychologist

Dr. Sanchez is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and mindfulness-based therapies, specifically Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and trauma-focused therapies. She primarily works with adults and adolescents coping with trauma, mood disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorders. She is passionate about global mental health and providing culturally-informed treatment. For more details click  here.

Therapy that Works

Therapy can be hard work. But there’s good news, too. When YOU put in the work, research shows that THERAPY WORKS to create lasting change. Mindful Living Baltimore builds on treatments that are evidence-based, which means they have been shown to help people get better and stay better. We collaborate with each individual to tailor treatment to your goals, strengths, and needs.

Why it Works

Cognitive Behavioral and mindfulness-based therapies help you change the way you interact with your own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, as well as how you interact with the world around you. Like building physical muscles at the gym, mental and emotional health can be strengthened and enhanced over time with the right practice and support. We will work with you to create a full and meaningful life where you, not your symptoms or emotions, are in control.

Do your symptoms keep you stuck?

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Defined by pain or emotions

Life stressors like trauma, relationship conflicts, or even our own patterns of thoughts and behaviors can interfere with our ability to remember or experience anything besides negative emotions or the problems in our lives.

Mindful living helps connect you to what else matters to you, now or in the life you want to live.

Caught in the past or the future

Worries about the future or grief and regret about the past can be so powerful that they keep us from interacting with what we can actually control: what’s happening right now. Mindful living allows you to cultivate awareness and connection to the present moment.

Hopelessness and Helplessness

Depression, anxiety, interpersonal difficulties, and coping with trauma all interrupt feelings of control over our lives, or belief that anything will ever change. Mindful living allows you to explore and reengage with your values and goals to stop surviving and start living.

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Mindfulness is the process of connecting with reality as it is in the moment.

The first step to changing a painful situation – whether that situation is created by our emotions, by an external situation, or both – is to understand where we are and where we want to go. If you jump in a river and start swimming with your eyes closed, you certainly will move in some direction… but not necessarily in the direction where you hope to end up. Mindfulness is a set of skills for observing and reacting effectively to the world around us without getting caught up in the unhelpful assumptions, rules, and patterns of behavior that kept you stuck in the first place.

Live a meaningful life

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No two individuals experience life exactly the same way. Tap into your own values and goals to create a life worth living.

Stay engaged

Build skills to increase awareness of and engagement with the world around you — and the world inside you.

What is Evidence-Based Therapy?

Previous experiences with therapy

Therapy can look very different depending on a provider’s training and approach. A big part of finding the right therapist is developing a relationship based on trust, safety, and compassion — and that is my number one priority in meeting new clients. The best treatment is also based on extensive research about how people can benefit most from treatment. If you are investing time, energy, and financial resources into your treatment, you want to know it is solidly based on the science of mental health and human behavior.

Some people arrive at Mindful Living Baltimore concerned that therapy cannot work for them. They feel hopeless, or discouraged, or worried that they are beyond help. In fact, some have had previous therapy experiences that have reinforced these fears. Whether you’re new to therapy or have had past experiences of “staying stuck” in treatment that seems like it is not going anywhere, don’t give up hope.

We will work together to create a treatment plan tailored to address your individual treatment goals and needs. Therapy is an active process — for you and your therapist. In addition to your weekly appointment, you may be asked to practice skills outside therapy, monitor problem behaviors, or engage in tasks between sessions to work towards your goals.

Proven Techniques

No single approach is perfect for everyone. However, extensive clinical research has been done (and continues to be done) about which therapy techniques actually lead to reductions in symptoms, improved well-being, and sustained change. At Mindful Living Baltimore, together we will design a treatment plan that builds on the science of what works, and tailored to what will help you reach your individual treatment goals.

Examples of Evidence-Based Therapies:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and trauma focused therapies such as Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Prolonged Exposure therapy (PE) have been shown to help create sustained and meaningful change for individuals

CBT

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is a broad category of treatment that focuses on the relationship between our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and how unhelpful or inflexible patterns of thinking can reinforce painful emotions and problem behaviors that keep us stuck. You will learn skills to increase your awareness of your thoughts and emotions as they arise, and challenge and replace unhelpful beliefs with more effective ways of thinking about and interacting with yourself, others, and the environment.

ACT

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy utilizes mindfulness- and acceptance-based strategies to increase psychological flexibility, contact with the present moment, and commitment to a meaningful life. You will learn to identify and clarify your primary values, commit to specific action steps that work towards your goals, and increase sources of meaning in your day-to-day life. You will be taught strategies to make space for both positive and negative emotions while “dropping the struggle” with emotions, urges and beliefs that interfere with your ability to engage meaningfully with your goals.

Trauma-Focused Therapies

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) helps clients build awareness into the ways your trauma has impacted your way of making sense of yourself, others, and the world. During treatment you will learn to make space for natural emotions related to the trauma while also exploring patterns of thinking that keep you stuck in your symptoms. You and your therapist will review strategies to evaluate your current ways of thinking and to identify balanced beliefs within domains frequently impacted by trauma, including safety, trust, power and control, esteem for self and others, and intimacy.

Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE) is an exposure-based treatment in which your therapist will guide you in gradually approaching the trauma-related thoughts, memories, and situations you may have been avoiding since the event(s). Although avoidance can reduce negative emotions in the short term, over time avoiding these experiences actually increases distress and is a factor in maintaining PTSD symptoms. Your therapist will aid you in revisiting thoughts and emotions within a safe, structured, and supportive environment.

DBT

Dialectical Behavior Therapy is a type of cognitive-behavioral therapy that centers on increasing behavioral skills in four primary domains: mindfulness; distress tolerance; interpersonal effectiveness; and emotion regulation. By fostering skills in these four areas and reducing unsafe coping strategies, DBT aims to improve behavioral effectiveness and increase a clients’ ability to build and commit to a life worth living. You will learn to apply mindfulness skills to tolerate painful emotions without making the situation worse, increase your effectiveness in managing your own emotions and interactions with other people, and work towards a balance between acceptance and change.

DBT generally combines both individual psychotherapy and group therapy. At this time, Mindful Living Baltimore cannot provide complete DBT services because we do not offer a DBT skills group or after-hours coaching. We are happy to provide referrals for supplementary DBT resources in the area.