Kristy Summers, L.C.S.W. P.A., has been a psychotherapist in private practice for 20 years in Miami, Florida. Serving all of South Florida, specifically Miami and Ft Lauderdale, Kristy specializes in relationship addiction, chemical dependency, intimacy issues, codependency, eating disorders, sex addiction, and marital & family counseling. Her philosophy as a therapist is “what you don’t work out, you live out”.
Kristy graduated from Florida International University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1980. Afterward, she attended graduate school at Florida State University and attained her master’s degree in social work. Two years later, she was licensed by the state of Florida as a Clinical Social Worker. Throughout her years in private practice, as a result of counseling many patients with relationship problems, she saw common symptoms emerge in many of her patients.
Kristy was able to identify a destructive type of loving with stages of progression. As a result, she developed her theory and treatment of relationship addiction. She found it amazing that so many people of all walks of life, educated or uneducated, black or white, rich or poor, have this unhealthy pattern. Kristy is known for her seminars of love addiction. In these workshops she uses psychodrama and gestalt techniques to break down the walls that keep us stuck in these patterns. Attending one seminar is literally like doing one year of psychoanalysis. She also uses plastic bats and other props to help people release their anger. Depression is often defined as anger turned inward, so expressing ones anger is crucial in recovering from relationship addiction. This is why self-help books, or more traditional talk therapies, are not enough to facilitate permanent change. Intellectual understanding is not sufficient on its own; it’s the deep seated emotions that keep us stuck.
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