My name is Christine Dufond, and I am a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern (#61172) working under the supervision of Linda Collett, licensed Marriage and Family Therapist #45886. Fees for my services are based on a sliding fee scale and range from $30 to $80 per session depending on your income. I offer daytime or evening appointments and welcome individuals of all ages, cultures, religious preferences, and sexual orientations. I also offer a free 20 minute phone consultation upon request.

           My main emphasis and experience is in couples counseling and individual counseling for adults and adolescents. I also love working with children and families. I have an emotionally focused-mindfulness based orientation. Hence, I draw from both Eastern and Western Psychology. My focus throughout the counseling process is to provide my clients with the support, guidance, insight, and tools needed to sustain them on their unique path of healing and growth. Some of the major aspects of my role as your counselor are:  to help you identify your goals; heal/resolve/make peace with any past wounds; to help you to align with your own innate strengths and abilities; to collaborate with you in the therapeutic process so that you feel empowered and supported on your path of healing and growth; and to provide you with some new insights and skills to aid you on this magnificent journey.

         My approach to counseling is to guide my clients to the awareness that the difficulty they are experiencing can be replaced with growth. All they have to do is choose growth and stay committed to the process. All difficulty in life is an opportunity for growth. We just have to decide that we are ready to move on from a state of stagnancy, negativity or despair to state of actively striving for and achieving growth. The path of growth leads us to a life experience that has more meaning, more harmony, more joy, more love, more connectedness to ourselves and others, and more mutually satisfying relationships with loved ones. Using mindfulness and emotionally focused techniques, I help my clients learn how to find their own unique path of growth. The goal is then for this path to be woven into your daily lifestyle so that you can achieve an increasingly better quality of life as you become more and more adept at using what you have learned. I am continually in awe of the beauty that comes out of the struggle for my clients.  I believe that inside all of us is an innate ability to cultivate the gardens of our souls and our relationships and restore harmony and balance to our lives in a way we may have never thought possible. Sometimes we just need a safe, unbiased, sacred space to really focus on what it is that our soul is trying to tell us. Then, with some gentle, unbiased guidance and the acquisition of a few new insights and tools, we can free ourselves from our often unconsciously self-imposed limitations. What a sense of self-empowerment it is to realize that you have the strength, ability, and inner light to lead you to your soul's desire! Indeed, it is a very liberating, profound experience.