Helping People Help Themselves
Personalized & Accessible Therapy & More from the Comfort of Your Home
Welcome to the Practice of Dr. Nikou
You are officially on your way to achieving a healthier, happier you. I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who earned a Ph.D. in my respective discipline with 24 years of experience. I facilitate individual, couples, and family psychotherapy sessions for adults (21 and older with some exceptions) .
I provide supervision for students as well as professionals working towards their license or professionals interested in receiving guidance with their cases.
I utilize psychoeducation actively in my work and can assist professionals with organizing and arranging material for presentations, webinars, or seminars.
As a professional educator, I can assist with editing, proofreading, and arrangement of written assignments such as papers or cover letters.
I offer consultation services to fellow professionals in the infancy stages of private practice development or those looking to refine an existing practice. Services include establishing a personalized business model, training on how to approach clerical and clinical issues/items, and bookkeeping services.
Recently I have begun advising clients on how to “interview” a potential therapist/provider. I can provide a list of relevant questions to help in making an informed decision, specific to your needs.
And More…
Services
Psychotherapy Sessions (Licensed & Serving CT)
Individual, couples, or family psychotherapy sessions facilitated to help address current and/or long-term issues that are interfering with life satisfaction. Stressors may include but are not limited to life transitions, loss/grief, interpersonal issues, unhealthy communication styles, and garden variety daily life problems.
Supervision
Provide feedback and support based on experience, knowledge, and relevant evidence-based practice techniques to help students or professionals in their work with clients. Reinforce the importance of self-care for professionals by reviewing concepts such as compassion fatigue, burnout, and complacency.
Consultation
Assist and advise in developing a practice as well as refine a pre-existing practice. Items for consideration include but are not limited to selecting a specialty, choosing a population to work with, credentialing (insurance-based providers), advancing knowledge about current evidence-based practices and approaches, creating a business plan, selecting a bookkeeping model, and addressing work-life balance as a self-employed practitioner.
Editing & Proofreading
Revising a text to ensure it is free of grammatical, syntax, and stylistic errors. Review content, structure, and language, as necessary. Conduct a light review of the research or literature if informative and statistical content is lacking. Emphasis on material pertaining to social services, e.g., psychology, social work, mental health counseling, and marriage and family therapy.
Presentation Development
Assist professionals or students in the organization of academic materials through review of journals, databases, and other appropriate resources. Create a focused, organized presentation vis-à-vis PowerPoint. Emphasis on material pertaining to social services.
Crafting Informed Questions
Inquire about your treatment needs based on self-report, clinical symptoms, diagnosis (if known), and collateral information. Evaluate which type of professional you would be best suited to work with based on their discipline. Consider practical items as well. Assist in developing questions to ask when selecting an appropriate professional.
Health Education
Doctor (Ph.D. in Nursing) and Licensed Registered Nurse (RN) addresses health management. Areas of discussion consist of but are not limited to understanding how your medication works (avoiding contraindications), the effects of dietary limitations or additions, managing your blood pressure, and maintaining necessary health screening. Specialists are recommended per request.
Life Coaching/Wellness Assistance
Examine core values and beliefs to determine goals to pursue. Establish goals to improve different aspects of life such as relationships, career, and finances. Emphasis on short-term, supportive relationship. Therapy focuses on mental health and healing emotional wounds often deriving from the past while life coaching focuses on setting and achieving attainable goals in the present.
“Dr. Nikou is really skillful at teaching you how to be more self-aware. Before I began working with her, I didn’t realize how much my own actions were sabotaging me. Once I recognized I was defeating myself, my whole life changed.”
— Bobby, CLIENT
Covid-19
The Impact of Covid-19 on Mental Health
On January 30th, 2020, the WHO (World Health Organization) declared the Covid-19 outbreak a global health emergency. On March 11th, 2020, it was upgraded to a global pandemic. For over 1 year our lives have been changed in nearly every conceivable way. We are working from home, learning from home, socializing from home, and remodeling our homes! The implications of the pandemic on the economic, financial, and political infrastructures will outlast the immediate threat of the spread of the virus . As a result of Covid-19, our mental health has also changed. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (2021), “In January 2021, 41% of adults reported symptoms of anxiety and/or depressive disorder. In a survey from June 2020, 13% of adults reported new or increased substance use due to coronavirus-related stress, and 11% of adults reported thoughts of suicide in the past 30 days.” Now is the time to seek help from a trained professional as we can all use support to help us remember to take one day at a time.
Covid-19 in Our Own Backyard…
I had the privilege of meeting a young man, Emerick, under the most unfortunate of circumstances. He is a 21-year-old college senior, graduating in May from a prestigious music school in NYC. He has devoted his life to pursuing his passion of playing a musical instrument and supporting his family who emigrated to the US years ago. His mother, Emmy, was a loyal employee of a Westchester County school district for many years. She enjoyed working with children and she looked forward to working every day with her co-workers, many of whom became her friends. Emmy contracted Covid-19 while at work and she fought a hard battle which ended on April 27th, 2020. Emmy was part of the disproportionate members of our black and brown community who are dying at higher rates from Covid-19. She was 41 years old. Emerick, her eldest child, is an orphan at 21 learning how to transition from “child” to adult, as his circumstances lent themselves to this necessary adjustment overnight. He is resilient, independent, resourceful, and most importantly hopeful about his future despite the cards he has been dealt. I hope you find his story as inspirational as I have.
