Meet Caroline

Caroline Faifman is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor serving people all over Florida via telehealth and in her office in New Port Richey.

She works with teens and adults, helping them create ease and belonging in their lives. She treats a variety of mental health issues, specializing in perfectionism.

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Issues I Treat

Perfectionism

Do you feel bogged down by a list of tasks you’re not doing right? Does your sense of worth equate to how much you accomplish? If you are struggling to juggle it all without the pressure of constant anxiety- you could be a perfectionist. Therapy can help through learning to come home to yourself, value your innate worth and see your strengths. Encouragement goes a long way when we feel trapped in our old habits.

Poor Self-image

Do you look in the mirror and say critical things to yourself? Do you feel like a burden to other people? If you have a hard time not comparing yourself to others, thinking they are doing better than you or meeting life goals before you, this may be due to deep shame within you. Let’s get you back to treating yourself with more tenderness and dignity. You are worthy.

Disordered Eating

Sometimes, we struggle in secret with paralyzing worry about our body image. We are afraid to gain weight, and/or we constantly are trying to lose a few pounds. Controlling everything you put in your mouth, checking your fat with a pinch, losing your hunger cues, binging and purging- these are all indicators you may have a difficult relationship with your body and eating. Therapy can help you reach your goals in a healthy way and slow down the constant worry about food.

Overthinking

If you stop for a moment, you will hear a busy head. Sometimes it gets overwhelming- you might use substances, checking out, or impulsive behavior to just get out of your head. Do you have a hard time letting things go, ruminating about them when you go to sleep and the moment you wake up? Do you pick apart situations or play out whole conversations with others in your mind? Overthinking can be exhausting. Let’s slow it down, give you some practical tools that actually work, and see the constant noise get quieter.

Shame

People who struggle with crippling guilt, reject themselves before others can, or who are constantly sorry for their actions- could be a result of toxic shame. Shame erodes our sense of the truth and can lead to health problems. Sometimes these feelings arise after a trauma. Sometimes we know the thoughts don’t make sense logically, but we feel them deeply anyway. Therapy can help us relearn that we are not terrible and we didn’t make the wrong decisions. We just made mistakes- or worse, other people did things to us & that shouldn’t have happened. Healing from shame is here. Don’t wait.

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People-Pleasing

Do you say yes even when you’re overcommitted? Maybe you can’t tell what you think in situations with new people or those closest to you. Do you find yourself wishing you would have stayed home when you overdo it, taking a long time to recover? Or do you feel you always have to be polite, positive, or keep up things pretty on the outside? “People pleasing” is a term that can mean a lot of things. But it comes when we can’t say our truth or worse- when we don’t even know what we really want anymore. When we act how others need us to, we separate ourselves from our core self. Therapy helps us return home to ourselves, speak up, and accept that others may judge us, but we don’t have to judge ourselves so harshly anymore.

My Approach

Adlerian Psychotherapy

I am passionate about Alfred Adler’s Individual Psychology. Adlerian psychotherapists use this theory when working with individuals and families. I strive to see you as a whole person, living in context with your background, other wellness routines, your family, spirituality, and work life. The goal is to get you feeling less discouraged and more empowered to make movement in your life. Understanding why things are the way they are will help us a lot, but it’s not the only step. Feeling supported in implementing some new ideas and behaviors gets you the rest of the way to your new life.

Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT)

ACT uses a lot of tools from mindfulness meditation. Ever been told to meditate for your stress? Maybe you tried it only to find that your mind was a haunted corn maze and you had to stop immediately? Good, you’re in the right place. Mindfulness has to be learned. It’s not easy. That’s why they call it practice. It takes a lot of practice. One of the key pieces to allowing the present moment to be what it is without judgment: acceptance. I don’t have to like something in order to concede that it is. I accept that I don’t live on the moon. I accept that I’m mad at my sister. Now, how do I deal with how it feels to be here? This is the work of ACT. The commitment part is making a try at facing this problem instead of avoiding it. In therapy, we learn how to be uncomfortable. It’s an art form. It can release you from the pain you’ve been running from. This is all practiced in a safe, compassionate relationship with your therapist. Slowly.

Exposure with Response-Prevention (ERP)

It’s not as scary as it sounds, I promise. ERP is the gold standard in treating OCD because it does help people realize they don’t have to follow through with behaviors, they have control! One example of ERP is for a person who is afraid of sounding rude: try saying something rude in the safety of the therapy room. No one will know. You find out that you 1) can do it, and 2) don’t spontaneously implode. We will walk through how to deal with the feelings that follow. It sounds terrifying, but we take it One. Step. At. A. Time.

Holistic Wellness & Nutritional Counseling

Because I have training in health and wellness, I offer this perspective to clients who are interested. There are a lot of biological and physical processes that contribute to issues with mood. Sleep, cycles, eating, love & family life, stress, exercise, breathing, dehydration - these all impact us so much more than we like to admit.

Since I’m trying to see you as an amalgamation of all of these forces, we can check out some of the things that might be exacerbating your anxiety, depression, stress, & physical ailments.

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Adlerian Theory

I’ve earned certificates of Adlerian study and Adlerian psychotherapy from the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology. I love talking about this and am an active member of the Florida Society of Adlerian Psychology (FSAP).

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