Immigration Evaluations

As an immigrant from Argentina living in the U.S. since 1990, and in her position as the foundress and president/director of Crecer, Inc., a psychotherapy center providing bilingual and bicultural psychotherapy services to individuals and families in Queens, NY, Priska has accumulated three decades of experience working with immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, victims of DV and other crimes, abuse and persecution, as well as serving as expert witness for U.S. Immigration Courts, advocating for clients going through the complexities of their legalization processes. The concentration of her work consists of providing individual and family psycho-socio-emotional evaluations for U.S. citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents petitioning for their immigrant relatives, who are suffering from extreme emotional hardship caused by removal procedures or denied admission to the U.S. of their loved ones, or are in the process of legalization with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, applying for self-petitions to obtain VAWA, Asylum or U-Visa benefits.

Family/Couple’s Therapy

There is no membership in any other groups that would possible attract more joy or more pain to our lives than our family systems. Typical families go through life transitions, struggles with illnesses, separations, losses, exposure to work/businesses-related stress, traumatic experiences and other stressors, and as a result, members can lose their ability to connect and communicate effectively. Often times, these events can cause disconnections, conflictive—at times harmful—thoughts, feelings and behaviors towards loved ones that can foster unstable, unhealthy dynamics.

Family and Couple’s Therapy can offer a supportive, healing space to help members enhance family strengths, assist them to navigate through—and survive—difficult times. It can also serve as a forum to hold important—at times difficult—conversations, develop improved lines of communication and together create new ways to support one another. Family and Couple’s Therapy can offer a unique, golden opportunity for its members to explore difficult relational dynamics and identify their origins; understand and empathize with each other’s pains and suffering; learn how to recognize triggers; understand roles and dynamics; as well as discover creative, healthier alternatives to function towards the wellbeing of the system as a whole.

Individual Psychotherapy for Adults

Often times we found ourselves in need of external assistance to explore and identify areas within ourselves that can be both a source of stress and strength and can benefit from some close attention. As social beings, we frequently encounter external circumstances, people, relationships and experiences that can trigger new stresses, resurface old, conflictive feelings and attitudes, as well as create confusion and despair. Addressing them with historically ineffective or obsolete responses might no longer be the answer. Difficult-to-handle situations require a positive self-perception, knowledge of our inner resilience, easily accessible tools and ready-to-use newly developed strategies- kind of approach to help us in our journey. Finding a trained, seasoned Mental Health professional with whom to establish a therapeutic relationship, can be the first step towards change and healing; the key we need to enter a new realm of positive change and personal growth, the self-acceptance to heal our pain and the readiness and confidence to guide ourselves and learn how to pave a new path in life.

Child/Adolescent-focused Psychotherapy

Whether based on neurological conditions, learning disabilities or socially, emotionally originated challenges, troublesome responses and other maladaptive behaviors presented in children and adolescents can be the leading causes of long-term difficulties affecting their educational, family, social and personal lives. A timely, specialized and sensitive child-focused therapeutic intervention that can effectively provide a different, positive experience to the child, can be the most appropriate way to address and modify already identified emotional and behavior issues, prevent further mental health-emotional impairments and support a healthy development into adulthood. A combination of family, individual and social psychotherapy approach to children and adolescent’s mental health has been proven to promote healthier, more fulfilling developmental years for the child and the family as well as to prevent future dysfunctional or restrictive life experiences. Sometimes Play, Cognitive-Behavioral, Child-focused therapy approaches with children can help them reduce or eliminate unwanted thoughts and behaviors and, in most cases, Parenting Training and Family Therapy can help parents and families learn or improve skills to manage the child’s behavior and develop healthier lifelong family dynamics.

Clinical Supervision

The field of Psychotherapy can be considered a science as it fulfills all or most prerequisites to be one, including the intellectual, practical, systematical and organized body of knowledge, and can also be described as an art and a craft that takes not only the academic course of study and a professional degree, but also the development of a finely-attuned, dynamic and always-growing, motivated, assertive and charismatic clinician who can offer tailored and creative interventions to a variety of clients and their presenting problems. Even seasoned clinicians can benefit from supervision to understand different or complicated cases and develop effective interventions, as well as to explore the self-of-the therapist component present in all therapeutic relationships. Clinical supervision to individual and family therapists in private practice as well as Clinically supervised hours to meet professional and regulatory requirements for professional licensing, including LCSW, LCSW-R and LMHC are available at Crecer, Inc.

Workshops and Professional Trainings

Psychoeducation is an essential part of a healthy society, as the better informed and acutely aware of issues concerning mental health, parenting, children’s socio-emotional development, healthy relationships and personal growth that members of a society can be, the healthier their lives, families and communities will become. Professional workshops and community-based lectures and seminars in topics relevant to Personal Development, Wellness, Parenting, Children’s Mental Health, Acculturation and Family Reunification are available at Crecer, Inc.