AVIVA PSYCHOLOGY SERVICES

Dr. Urbano is a founding partner and the Clinical Director for Aviva Psychology Services. She is a dedicated clinician and supervisor, and she helps to build our team and bring our clinical vision to life. She supports our growing team with organizational development, clinical support, and training.

As a licensed psychologist, Dr. Urbano provides individual, couples, family, and group therapy to adults of all identities. She utilizes structured therapy models (CBT, ACT, IFS, and Bader's Developmental Model of Couples Therapy) and psychodynamic processes. She specializes in helping individuals who feel anxious or emotionally overwhelmed to improve coping and increase comfort with themselves, their feelings and thoughts, and others. She also specializes in helping individuals, couples, and families to improve communication, develop healthier attachments, and better understand and change hurtful relational patterns.

Dr. Urbano has an additional area of expertise in perinatal mental health and is dedicated to working with both aspiring and current parents throughout the complex family planning and adjustment process, including grief and traumatic loss, coping with uncertainty, and adjustment to parenthood.

As an integrated psychodynamic and behavioral psychologist, Dr. Urbano believes that a combination of self-awareness building and skill-building tailored to the unique needs of each client provides a strong foundation for effective therapy. Her basic approach to therapy helps clients to recognize their role in making desired changes, build strategies for healthier coping and relational functioning, and translate their values into action to live more secure, satisfying, and connected lives.  

During your therapy process with Dr. Urbano, you will find that she is active and provides feedback, is compassionate and honest, and values your feelings. You will also find that she regularly discusses your therapy process, goals, and our relationship in addition to inviting your feedback.

Dr. Karthaus is a founding partner and the Business Manager for Aviva Psychology Services. Dr. Karthaus is a visionary and a phenomenal systems thinker. She is gifted at translating ideas into action, and at implementing efficient systems to optimize organizational functioning.

In her clinical role as a licensed psychologist, she provides individual therapy and career counseling. She focuses on working with diverse populations and has an expertise in working with individuals who struggle with anxiety, career challenges, and adjustment to parenting.

In practice, Dr. Karthaus works from a mindfulness-based perspective, integrating evidence-based interventions from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). She is a registered yoga teacher, which informs her work in helping clients to cultivate intuitive strategies for managing the stress of daily life. Finally, as a counseling psychologist, Dr. Karthaus has a great deal of experience in helping clients find value and meaning in their careers. She offers both formal career-counseling sessions as well as integrates career counseling into individual psychotherapy sessions as it is relevant to clients’ needs.

As a behavioral therapist, Dr. Karthaus aims to help clients identify patterns of behavior and make active choices to move towards their values. She believes that much of the pain in life stems from avoidance. While avoidance of pain is a universal human experience, it often leads to moving away from values in an effort to feel less intensity. With this in mind, her approach to therapy involves (a) working with clients to understand the function of their behaviors (b) increase mindfulness skills and expand emotional awareness and (c) increase willingness to make the changes that would help them move towards a more valued life.

Dr. Schmidt is a present and intuitive psychologist who works with clients from a person-centered perspective.  She works with the understanding that healing comes from integrating parts of ourselves to feel more present, whole, fulfilled, and connected to other people and to our spiritual selves.  She encourages active participation and uses emotion focused therapies and trauma-informed practices to build a strong therapeutic relationship, which creates safety to explore desired change and enhance a sense of well-being and hope along that journey.    

Dr. Schmidt is also passionate about working with couples to strengthen resiliency and connection in relationships.  Patterns often evolve in relationships that trouble couples.  Dr. Schmidt works with partners to encourage re-connection and improve intimacy.  Her approach focuses on the capacity of the relationship, and the persons in it, to build security and attuned communication on both non-verbal and verbal levels.  

Dr. Schmidt works from a humanistic stance, listening to her clients’ narratives, unconscious communications, and emotional expressions with intention and focused presence.   With careful and individualized attunement to each client and couple, she draws largely from the wisdom of Psychodynamic theories, Internal Family Systems, CoherenceTherapy, and Psychobiological approaches.

Dr. McMorran is a warm and skillful psychologist with expertise treating depression, anxiety disorders, complex trauma, and trauma-related disorders. She has completed extensive training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), mindfulness/acceptance-based, transdiagnostic and psychodynamic approaches.

Dr. McMorran enjoys working with adults of all ages who are diverse in their identities, backgrounds, and perspectives, and she is committed to multicultural training and competence. She highly values the insights, growth and improved emotional stability engendered by mindfulness practices, and welcomes the opportunity to help clients explore and develop mindfulness skills.

Dr. McMorran uses an integrative approach that incorporates CBT, ACT, mindfulness-based and psychodynamic techniques, allowing her to tailor treatment to the unique needs of each person. Through this integrative approach, clients can expect both short-term symptom improvement and long-term growth in accordance with their goals for therapy. Dr. McMorran views her role as supporting and guiding active collaboration between therapist and client, with the understanding that a trusting and open therapeutic relationship is the foundation of effective psychotherapy. Her core therapy values include genuineness, compassion, and an open-minded curiosity, which enable her to connect deeply with clients in the service of their self-understanding and whole well-being.

Dr. Role is a psychologist devoted to building genuine, nourishing connections with her clients. Her graduate training focused on providing multiculturally affirming therapy to people of a variety of backgrounds and intersecting identities. Dr. Role also trained in evidence-based approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to aid clients in achieving their therapeutic goals. She has specialized training in working with members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community and the young adult population, both in university and community health settings.

Dr. Role provides individual and group therapy. She brings both a variety of experience and a passion for working with members of the LGBTQIA2S+, kink, and polyamorous/ethical non-monogamy communities. She is also dedicated to working with individuals facing life and identity-related challenges, such as navigating chronic illness, gender roles, emerging adulthood, and work/life balance. Dr. Role collaborates with clients on a variety of concerns, such as anxiety, relationships/dating, self-esteem, and imposter syndrome.

As an integrative psychologist, Dr. Role draws from relational-cultural, CBT/ACT, and psychodynamic approaches. She collaborates with each of her clients to determine what will best meet their specific needs, wants, and goals in therapy. At the heart of her work, she aims to deeply understand, support and empower her clients. She approaches each therapeutic relationship with warmth and gentle curiosity.

Dr. Wu is a warm, hopeful psychologist who is dedicated to improving adults’ well-being by understanding their experiences, identifying their values and needs, and improving their security in relationships. He enjoys a collaborative therapy process with adults of diverse, intersecting identities and backgrounds, and he prioritizes working within clients’ frames of reference to reach their goals.

Dr. Wu provides individual and group therapy, treating a range of issues such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, academic and career challenges, adjustment challenges, dating and relationships, men’s concerns, Asian American mental health, and identity development. He specializes in working with the young adult population and with those experiencing difficult life transitions. His therapeutic approach builds on clients’ existing strengths, explores current concerns while considering the impact of past experiences, and increases skills for self-awareness, coping, communication, and values-driven behavioral changes.

Dr. Wu’s approach to psychotherapy is integrative, tailored to clients, and strengths-focused. It is informed primarily by relational, emotion-focused, CBT, and ACT approaches, and incorporates mindfulness and DBT skills. This process encourages holistic awareness and acceptance of the many aspects of ourselves, empowering individuals to better understand self and others, and to more confidently define next steps. He provides a supportive therapeutic space characterized by patience, compassion, flexibility, and curiosity. He values authentic communication and invites feedback in the therapeutic relationship.