Associate Therapist, Monroeville

Carissa began her career with COA as an intern in August 2020 and transitioned into her role as an Associate Therapist and Intake Manager upon graduating from the MS in Counseling Psychology program at Chatham University. She believes that effective therapy includes an appropriate balance of empathy, humor, active listening, and proper guidance rooted in evidence-based practices. While your work together will focus on treating OCD and related disorders, Carissa intends to utilize a holistic approach necessary in treating the whole person. Her primary goal is to help clients realize happy, healthy, fulfilling lives by taking their freedom back from the binds of OCD. Carissa enjoys working in a creative, collaborative environment while cultivating meaningful relationships with clients. She finds it extremely rewarding to treat clients with OCD, as progress is often consistent and evident. As they say – if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life! 

Carissa’s clinical experience began in general private practice, and she later moved on to develop a more specialized treatment approach through an internship with COA during her final two semesters at Chatham. Throughout her internship, she had the fortune of observing and collaborating on various cases with multiple senior clinicians, working to develop her own therapeutic style and hone clinical skills as an OCD therapist. Additionally, working closely with Erin Harding-McNany – our Director of Education and Development and Carissa’s clinical supervisor – she had the pleasure of organizing and co-leading our initial treatment groups in which we provide psycho-education around developing a fundamental skillset based on Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help our group members learn to manage their OCD and anxiety symptoms. 

As a Master’s Level clinician still completing post-Master’s licensure requirements, Carissa does not yet bill insurance, but is able to provide outpatient therapy services at a reduced out-of-pocket rate. She is often able to get clients into her schedule more quickly than our Senior Therapists who are accepting insurance. If you would like to consider therapy at a reduced rate of $80/session, please indicate this on your Request for Services form.