My name is Dr. Erica Essary and I’m a licensed clinical psychologist also certified in addictions.  I offer individual and relationship therapy for adults.  My hope is to co-create a healing space where you are able to fully be present with yourself in order to learn, grow, and change.

I collaborate with you to identify your therapeutic goals, working from a relational integrated theoretical framework. This means my therapeutic interventions will vary according to your presenting concerns, though they all center around your relationship with yourself and others.  Every treatment plan is unique, and may include elements of psychodynamic or depth work, mindfulness and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), among others.

I am a gender and sexual identity affirming therapist who acknowledges there are many ways we can be in relationships with others in addition to traditional marriage.  This is why I say I offer relationship therapy instead of couples therapy or marital therapy, as these words appear too limiting of the relationship variations in the world.

I enjoy meeting people at the different developmental stages of their life and sometimes our work together revolves around the transitions that time brings, which I find satisfying.  I believe that finding our place in the world and connecting to others is essential to feeling grounded and fulfilled.

I have provided therapy and psychological assessment since 2010, when I first began working in community mental health.  I completed my pre-doctoral internship at DuPage County Health Department and my postdoctorate at Sertoma Centre in the Behavioral Health program.  I have worked with pre-teen clients as well as the elderly, though the majority of my work has been with adults.

In addition to individuals, couples, and family therapy, I have also run group therapy, both skills building (psychoeducational) and therapy (or process) groups.  I am passionate about ending mental illness stigma and have been presenting educational workshops for several years.  I began working in private practice in 2016 and set out to open my own business, Spectrum Psychological Services.