Dr. Cheryl A. Falkenstein
Psychologist & Therapeutic Yoga Teacher
252 South State Street
Newtown PA, 18940
Phone: 215.370.1235
Psychology
Hello. I'm happy to introduce myself "I'm Dr. Cheryl" and to welcome you to my website. I hope it gives you a sense of my psychology and therapeutic yoga practices. I have been working with children, adolescents, and adults in the field of psychology for over 30 years. Since that start, I continued on a path of further education and training. I can genuinely say that I'm grateful for each of the stops on this path, which has added to my learning. I want to tell you about the meaning I've felt in these experiences. Being with people who are entering therapy at times of personal reflection, improvement, or crisis has shown me the transformative strengths we all possess. I have great respect for my patients and the need for us to have a safe, trusting, collaborative relationship in order to do the heartfelt work of therapy. While I guide the process of building skills and discovering healing, you are the most valuable resource in your life.
Along the way, I have developed some niches in the areas of trauma work, grief, family play therapy, and adolescent development. A lot of my work has been with kids, teens, and families although my private practice has largely integrated adults and couples, too. I work with people who are experiencing depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, panic attacks, ADHD, OCD, and a range of life stressors, transitions, and relationship issues. This is not an exhaustive list since that would be too long, but I'm happy to let you know if I think I can help you.
What to expect from therapy? As I mentioned, I work in collaboration with my patients. When seeing children or teens, I also work with their families when appropriate. Of course, there is individual time for children and teens as part of the treatment approach, too. When beginning, it is very helpful to do an assessment during the first few sessions. This is a time of gathering information and understanding the big picture as well as your primary concerns that will help us identify a direction for therapy. As we put the pieces together, we will talk about how we can focus on your goals.
There are many approaches used in psychotherapy, so being integrative makes sense. Why not use a combination of different methods that are effective. Nearly everyone in the field would agree that cognitive-behavioral approaches can help all of us with looking at our thoughts and behaviors and making healthy changes in these areas. These strategies are interwoven in our work. My training as well as an abundance of research in psychology, neurology, and biology has taught me that there are many other paths to healing and health, and I have made these cornerstones of my practices with people. Many that I use are focused on body, sensory, expressive, reflective, and meditative practices that facilitate healing. I explain more about some of these in the Dr. Cheryl section, so keep on reading.
Therapeutic Yoga
In my psychology work, I've seen the remarkable benefits of practices focused on the body, mind, and spirit. As I've worked with people in these ways, I became more interested in the therapeutic nature of yoga. Yoga is a practice that supports one's whole health. Just recently, I began offering individual therapeutic yoga sessions. I am not a yoga therapist, which is a specific discipline. I am teaching yoga practices individually that are focused on a person's intentions. The benefit of this is that you will learn yoga skills including breath work, meditation, visualization, and yoga poses that support your goals. The process is an 8 week practice of individual work. Therapeutic yoga can be helpful to anyone interested in learning yogic beliefs and practices. Some possible intentions for doing therapeutic yoga are learning relaxation skills, experiencing your body in positive ways, feeling emotions safely, improving your mood, trying new things, regulating anxiety, finding peace, taking care of you, allowing yourself to be playful or open, growing in confidence, developing healthy habits, improving concentration, increasing strength and flexibility, reducing physical stress and pain, developing gratitude, and cultivating love for yourself. I am super excited to teach this practice with both children and adults. What a great way to help yourself build skills and practices for your health and well-being in life.
About Dr. Cheryl
I already told you a bunch about my practices of psychology and yoga. I wanted to use this space to say a little more about my education, training, and work history.
Psychology Education -
It all started at the University of Delaware. Go fighting blue hens. As a bright-eyed undergraduate, I immersed myself in college life and after 4 years of study, clubs, and a bachelor's degree, my passion for psychology was even stronger. Then came my first job and what I consider my roots in the field. I learned the real way - doing it. While working, I returned to study at Temple University and earned my master's degree in counseling psychology. I was pretty psyched! Thanks to a persistent supervisor who bugged me to pursue my doctoral degree, after quite a few no thank you's, I budged. Again, very grateful. Back to good old Temple University some years later while still at the job. After 5 years of fun and hard work, I received my Ph.D. in counseling psychology.
Yoga Education -
I started with a short training in children's yoga teaching at Wake Up Yoga in Philadelphia in 2016. After that, I completed Levels 1, 2, and 3, and Mentorship and Practicum of a 95 hour certification program for children's yoga teachers at Little Flower Year. Last year, I did a 200 hour training through YogaLife to be an adult yoga teacher. I greatly appreciated all these experiences. Wake Up Yoga got my feet wet and interest brewing. Little Flower Yoga set a foundation for using mindfulness and trauma-informed practices with children in diverse settings. YogaLife taught classic yoga philosophy, anatomy of yoga, and invaluable experiential practices of meditation and yoga. I developed my personal yoga practice during these training experiences as well as taught children's classes at my office and at summer camps. Now, I'm teaching one one one therapeutic yoga.
Special Trainings -
Family Play Therapy and Child & Adolescent Development: I trained for 2 years at the Family and Play Therapy Center in Philadelphia in child and adolescent development and the use of family play therapy with kids, teens, and their parents or caregivers. Family play therapy includes play therapy, family talk time, and parenting sessions.
EMDR: During my doctoral internship at the Coatesville Veterans Affairs Medical Center, I was trained in EMDR Level 1. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a trauma focused therapy used extensively and successfully with trauma survivors. I later obtained Level 2 training, too. I use EMDR frequently with patients and see the effectiveness of this approach.
Sand tray therapy: I have been fortunate to find the Family & Play Therapy Center in Philadelphia where I've studied for years. I have completed lengthy courses in sand tray therapy with children and adolescents, adults, people in relationships, and in combination with focusing. Sand tray therapy is a modality where we use a tray of sand and miniature objects to create pictures and stories of life experiences to promote deep healing.
Focusing: I took a 9 month course on focusing at the FPTC. Focusing is similar to EMDR but does not use eye movements. It is a process of going inward to work on stuck issues or any experiences by tuning into one's body, sensory information, and emotions. Focusing trusts one's wisdom and ability to notice what is helpful for oneself.
Yoga: From my trainings in psychology and yoga, I integrate yoga into my psychology practice with patients. Yoga practices may include breathing exercises, creating imaginary resources through visualization, discussing yogic beliefs, meditating on intentions or affirmations, exploring spirituality, and cultivating healthy practices such as sleep and nutrition.
Expressive therapies: I have taken a number of trainings on different expressive practices that I use with people in my work. These include art, writing, movement, and music. There are many healing benefits of different expressive practices that allow us to be creative and connected to our bodies, minds, and spirits.
Internal Family Systems: I am an Internal Family Systems-Informed therapist. IFS therapy is a very useful therapy that faciliates an exploration and focus on different parts of a person's self. These parts are our subpersonalities that contain feelings and beliefs about ourselves and experiences. Tuning inward, people find their innate resources and are able to heal parts.
Contextual Family Therapy: I have taken a lengthy course at FPTC on contextual family therapy. This framework helps me to work well with families and often with multiple family members individually and together with multi-directed partiality toward all members of a family system while working on reciprocity, trust, safety, boundaries, and empathic communication.
Work History -
St. Francis - St. Joseph Homes for Children
I worked as a social worker, partial hospital supervisor, and therapist for 13 years with children and adolescents who lived in group homes due to trauma, loss, or disadvantaged family situations. I worked closely with the children and adolescents, their families, residential staff, schools, court, community agencies, and the Department of Human Services to coordinate care and provide treatment.
Northwestern Human Services
I supervised a Saturday partial hospital program for adults with severe mental illnesses for 3 years. I supervised and ran groups with patients and other therapists, responded to crises, and developed therapeutic activities.
Coatesville Veterans Affairs Medical Center
I did my doctoral internship at the CVAMC where I worked as a psychologist in training for 1 year in the inpatient PTSD unit, inpatient psychiatry unit, neuropsychology department, and nursing home. I provided individual and group therapy and psychological testing to veterans who experienced combat trauma, severe mental illnesses, brain injuries, and other medical conditions.
Shalom Inc.
I worked in a Catholic high school for 3 years providing counseling to students and working with the guidance department and student assistance program at the school to coordinate services. I worked with students who were experiencing mental health crises and I led groups on topics such as self-esteem, drug and alcohol education and prevention, grief, and social skills.
Maternal Child Consortium
I worked as an outpatient therapist with children, teens, and their families with a range of issues. I also did psychological evalautions for children with autism or who were deaf including seeing children at the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf.
Family Practice & Counseling Center
I worked for 3 years as a child and family psychologist in a federally qualified health center that provided both primary and behavioral health care to patients in Philadelphia. I worked collaboratively with the social worker, psychiatrist, and nurse practitioners to coordinate care for patients.
Children's Outreach Services
I was the assistant clinical director at a community mental health agency that provided services to children in their homes, schools, and community. I supervised clinicians, responded to crises, and did psychological evaluations for children and teens.
Progressions
I worked as a psychologist for several years conducting psychological evaluations for children, supervising therapists, and doing trainings.
Private Practice
I have had my own psychology practice for about 12 years serving kids, teens, adults, couples, and families.
Get Started
I know that making a decision about starting therapy or a yoga practice is a big one. I hope that the information you've read has helped you. If you have any questions as you decide, I'm happy to answer them. Please use the Contact section below to reach me. I will try to respond within a day. I can also be reached by phone, and will do my best to respond to voicemails if I can assist you. Please let me know if you are interested in therapy or therapeutic yoga, a brief reason for seeking services, and what insurance you have. I accept cash, checks, and major credit cards for services as well. I'm looking forward to seeing if I can help you. Getting Started forms for therapy or therapeutic yoga can be emailed to you. I wish you the best on your journey towards wellness.