Rista is a therapist with 25+ years of experience in diagnosis and assessment as well as level of care placement and referrals. She practices CBT and Animal Assisted Therapy to help adolescents and adults battling anxiety, depression, trauma or eating disorders. Her approach is person centered and trauma informed as she does believe her clients are the ones in charge of their treatment and her role is to empower them to achieve their goals. Because of her extensive work in higher levels of care, she is used to work with complex cases and does not shy away from acuity. She believes that anyone that comes seeking help is motivated to change and that her role is to facilitate not to impose, she speaks fluently in Spanish and comfortable conducting assessments and treating clients in this language if that is their preference. Her experience includes working as Director of Admissions and Crisis Services at Princeton House Behavioral Health in New Jersey, Director of Admissions and Utilization Review at Silver Hill Hospital, and more recently at Continuum of Care in New Haven, CT. In total she has more than 25 years of experience in hospital administration and the provision of crisis services. She currently lives in Danbury, CT with her husband Jorge and her 3 therapy dogs: Woody, Rosie, and Ruthie. While Woody is enjoying retirement, Rosie and Ruthie are still actively working and ready to help anyone that would benefit from their skilled interventions.