Diane Cushing has a Master's Degree in Clinical Psychology and is also licensed as a Registered Nurse. As a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, she has been counseling children, adolescents, and adult men and women in individual, family and couples psychotherapy since 1985. Her areas of expertise include marriage counseling, working with stress and anxiety management and depression and helping parents with child-behavior management and blended family issues.
She has considerable experience and a special interest in working with mother-daughter relationships, helping to resolve step-parenting conflicts and disagreements and the effects of family businesses on family dynamics.
As a psychotherapist with a nursing background, wife, mother, recent grandmother, and daughter, Ms. Cushing has considerable life and professional experience to help women deal with and adjust to motherhood, menopause, weight loss and other women's issues. She has also helped hundreds of men deal with issues involving depression, anger management, stress reactions, vocational distress, anxiety disorders and relationship conflicts.
For over 15 years, Diane Cushing has assisted men and women realize their full, personal potential by learning to embrace their unique strengths and skills either as single person or with-in a committed relationship.
Her medical background is most useful in coordinating medical care with psychiatrists and other physicians for those patients who are in need of prescription medications as a part of their treatment. Ms. Cushing has worked with many women who may have psychological factors caused by or affecting medical conditions including fibromyalgia, insomnia, cancer, arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue, migraines, pre-menstrual symptoms and other medical problems.
Diane Cushing has also counseled numerous patients with sex-related issues including sexual conflicts within a committed relationship, dealing with the betrayal of affairs, overcoming sexual trauma from rape, incest or other sex abuses and improving sexual response.
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DIANE'S COUNSELING APPROACH
Diane Cushing sees psychotherapy as a set of techniques aimed at curing or helping to solve or resolve behavioral and other psychological problems in people. The common part of these techniques is direct personal contact between therapist and client and/or parent and child or couple, mainly in the form of talking. Owing to the nature of these communications, there are significant issues of patient privacy and/or client confidentiality. Diane takes all steps possible to protect privacy in counseling and Glenwood staff is highly trained in all aspects of confidentiality of information and records under the new federal HIPPA guidelines.
Diane Cushing’s primary treatment approach is one of cognitive therapy or cognitive behavior therapy. This sort of psychotherapy is used effectively to treat depression, anxiety disorders, phobias, and other forms of psychological disorder. It involves recognizing distorted thinking and learning to replace it with more realistic substitute ideas. Its practitioners hold that the cause of many (though not all) depressions and other types of emotional distress are irrational thoughts. In addition, for child behavior problems, parent training or behavioral management counseling can be most effective. Cognitive therapy is often used in conjunction with mood stabilizing medications to treat bipolar disorder or other mental disorders with possible chemical imbalances. When such a disorder is being treated, Diane can arrange for a referral to a psychiatrist or primary care physician for any needed psychotropic medication management. Such patients are usually best served by a combination of on-going counseling and psychopharmacological treatment.
When working with people in counseling, Ms. Cushing provides a warm, nonjudgmental, and interactive environment in which her clients can feel comfortable and emotionally secure. She uses proven, practical and beneficial strategies to help clients:
1) get down to the "roots" of their issues
2) feel empowered to identify and change their negative patterns, thoughts, and feelings into more positive, accurate ones
Many people are helped to better address the issues in their lives in as few as 2 to 8 sessions. Others may wish to have additional time to sort out more complex problems and develop and reinforce improved coping skills. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, needs or the counseling process, feel free to contact Diane at (815) 968-5342 or via e-mail: diane@doctorcushing.com
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Diane welcomes questions about life issues, family conflicts, interpersonal struggles, marriage and child problems. E-mail her at:
Diane's e-mail
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