Elizabeth Quiros
Mental Health Counselor & Psychotherapist
PLPC, M.Ed, M.A., M.Phil, Ph.D.
Mindfulness-based psychotherapy for women struggling with depression and the legacy of childhood trauma
Supporting Women’s Wellbeing
Whatever you’re doing, it’s not enough: You’re not enough. You’re exhausted and overwhelmed but you continue to over-extend yourself. You don’t see any other way, and it’s nice to be needed. But a lifetime of ignoring your own needs is starting to cause problems. You’re losing motivation and interest in things you used to care about. Your emotional color spectrum has gone grey. You want to get your colors back but don’t know how, and you’re afraid of what might be lurking beneath the fog. I help women who are struggling with depression develop new ways of relating to their internal and external worlds and, in so doing, bring color back into their lives.
When depression comes, it is usually the body’s way of getting your attention, letting you know that your current way of operating is unsustainable, that your needs cannot be ignored any longer. I will work with you to manage and reduce depressive symptoms, but the majority of our work will focus on understanding and healing the source of depression at its root.
I work with women who are ready to do this deep work, despite their fear of it, because they want to let go of the pain they have held for a long time. They want to understand the ways their past experiences have led to the beliefs and behaviors that are keeping them stuck in unhealthy relationship patterns. They want to reconnect with their full range of emotions and discover who they are beyond the worries and traumas that have changed the course of their life.
I work with women who are ready to do this deep work, despite their fear of it, because they want to let go of the pain they have held for a long time.
I love doing this work with people. I love providing a steady hand and a flashlight as they embark on a frightening journey inward and helping women reclaim their stories, their health, and their self-worth in the process. I’m excited to work with you. I hope you’ll reach out when you’re ready.
Specializations
Specializing in depression and trauma recovery among women, Elizabeth helps clients develop skills for reducing symptoms in the short-term while also engaging in the deeper work of addressing and healing root causes.
Approach
Utilizing a mindfulness-based approach, Elizabeth incorporates tools from Buddhist psychology and Internal Family Systems therapy to help clients learn new ways of relating to their emotions and heal relational wounds.
Fees & Services
Elizabeth primarily works with individual adults, offering online psychotherapy to Missouri residents. She also sees people in-person from her home office in Eureka, MO. Her fee is $125 per 50-minute session; no insurance is accepted at this time.
Specializations
Elizabeth works with a wide variety of clients, but she specializes in helping women recover from depression and the legacy of childhood trauma.
Reducing Depressive Symptoms
Many women I work with struggle with self-blame and feeling “not enough”. They over-extend themselves in the care of others, conflating their value as people with being needed. After a while, the low self-worth and imbalance between care of others and care of self begin to manifest in depressive symptoms. Most people are motivated to seek therapy when such symptoms have become untenable, significantly interfering with their quality of life. Thus, part of our work entails developing strategies for managing and reducing these symptoms in the short-term, in order to provide some immediate relief.
Depression is more than a constellation of distressing symptoms. It is usually an important signal that something deeper needs attention. The majority of our work together will thus be geared toward understanding and resolving these deeper issues.
Addressing Problematic Patterns
Depression is often a manifestation of problems with the way someone is living their life. Maybe the way they are living is out of step with their values, they are ignoring their own needs, or are involved in toxic relationships. In these cases, we work on developing the necessary skills to break free of the negative beliefs and behaviors that may be keeping you stuck in dysfunctional situations. I like to draw on mindfulness tools to teach you more compassionate ways of relating to the parts of yourself that you may not like and that may be causing you problems, operating out of the belief that change is only possible through first accepting ourselves as we are.
Healing Relational Wounds and Childhood Trauma
Depression can also indicate that there are deeper emotional wounds that need to be addressed and healed – maybe a loss that hasn’t been grieved or adverse childhood experiences that haven’t been worked through. These deeper wounds may be where you learned the dysfunctional patterns that are keeping you stuck in the first place, and so we will need to understand and heal these so that the new skills you are developing will “stick” and create lasting change. I like to utilize techniques from Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy to help you engage in deep internal exploration and teach you to care for these wounded parts of yourself that may be carrying a lot of pain.
Trauma-related Disorders & Difficulties
The after-effects of trauma present themselves in a variety of ways, affecting not only mental health but physical health and relationships. Behaviors that initially initially emerged to help you cope with the pain of trauma eventually become ineffective and start to inflict pain themselves. I have extensive experience working with trauma-related mental health issues, from mood disorders (depression, anxiety, and bipolar), to dissociative disorders, borderline personality disorder, post-traumatic stress (PTSD), addiction, and functional neurological disorder (FND). Our therapeutic work will be tailored to your specific needs and pace, but usually begins with enhancing your ability to self-regulate and invoke a sense of felt safety when triggered, before engaging in deeper recovery work.
Personal Growth
One of the benefits of private-pay counseling is that you don’t need to have a diagnosable disorder to access services. Mental health without meaning is incomplete. It’s not enough to just feel better. It’s natural to want to be better: better versions of ourselves, better relationships with others, better in relationship to the world and our purpose in it. My academic background in philosophy and ethics means I can accompany you as you aim higher, asking the Big Questions and finding direction in your personal and professional life. I have helped clients increase insight into distressing feelings and behaviors, develop skills for handling uncomfortable emotions, discern career and relationship goals, and set healthy boundaries in their personal and professional lives. We will identify your own personal growth goals and develop a plan of action and accountability for realizing them.
Mindfulness-based Approach
At its most basic, “mindfulness” means being aware of the present moment, on purpose, and without judgment.
Mindfulness skills provide the basis of evidence-based therapies such as Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness-based Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (MB-CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
As with those therapies, I often incorporate mindfulness strategies for the purposes of symptom reduction and trauma recovery. I encourage clients to be more aware and accepting of their internal world and utilize tools such as guided meditations to help clients increase their distress tolerance and improve their ability to self-regulate when triggered.
However, my mindfulness-based approach is unique in its integration of “parts work” from Internal Family Systems (IFS therapy) with Vipassana (insight) meditation techniques for accessing deeper emotions and healing relational wounds.
Fees & Services
Your wellbeing is valuable to me, and I do my best work with clients who value the work I do for them. Your fees care for me as my services care for you.
| Individual Psychotherapy | Fee |
| 50-minute session (online or in-person) | $125 |
Services are provided on a self-pay basis; no insurance is accepted at this time.
Elizabeth Quiros is a Counselor for J. Davidson Counseling, LLC, working under the supervision of Jessica Davidson, LPC (license 2008027607).
Elizabeth Quiros, PLPC (license 2020036324)
Contact directly: elizabeth@eqcounselor.com | 314.200.5766
Schedule an Appointment: https://eqcounselor.clientsecure.me
Currently accepting new clients for both virtual and in-person appointments in Eureka, MO 63025.
EQ Counselor 