Hello, I first want to commend you for taking the first step in exploring therapy. My name is Peter Mittiga, and I have over ten years of experience as a mental health therapist and also have several years of professional managerial experience. I became a therapist because I wanted to be able to help others. Almost everyone sometime in their life will go through a mental health challenge, whether it’s family stress, anxiety, relationship issues, depression, work conflict, a traumatic event, etc. Sometimes we can put on a mask and push ourselves through these stressors, but other times the emotional effects these stressors can have on us show up at different times in our lives and can create challenging circumstances for us and we may take out our frustrations on people who don’t deserve it. My goal is to work with you to assist you in achieving your goals when it comes to therapy so that you can feel the way you want to feel.

In our first session, I will ask a lot of questions as I am getting to know you and understand your background. I will explore what brought you into therapy, but I will also explore your past experiences so that I can gain a better picture of who you are and what may be contributing to your current stressors. Our first few sessions also work on building rapport and developing the therapeutic alliance. Without therapeutic trust, therapy will not successfully work. So our first few sessions may feel more conversational as we work on building that trust and developing the therapeutic alliance. After that, we will really start to explore current stressors as well as underlying issues.

I take a person centered approach. I have you be the leader, but I am the guide. What I mean by that is, I may guide our sessions, but the purpose of the sessions is about helping you, so I want you to be able to take control and become the leader; therapy is only effective if you are an active member of the therapeutic process. This can be powerful for some, as the aspect of control may feel foreign or that it has been taken away, but I assist you with being able to regain it so you can take back some control in your own life.

I use person-centered therapy throughout your treatment, but will also utilize aspects of CBT, DBT, and Solution Focused Therapy, among others. I am trained in EMDR, and do use this with some of my clients, as it can be helpful when it comes to treating trauma, anxiety, or depression.