Dr. Devlin contracts with Wellness Psychological Services to offer services in both our Tampa and St. Pete offices as well as remote video services online across the state of Florida.
Welcome! I am Dr. Justine Devlin, a licensed psychologist trained in treating and working with a variety of mental health and general life adaptation concerns. My training and expertise across the lifespan includes treating adolescents, adults, and couples/families. My expertise and passion lies within the areas of treating emotional regulation (complex trauma), relationship distress, anxiety disorders, and mood disorders (depression, bipolar disorder). In addition, I have a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling for adjustment to physical disabilities. I specialize in couples and family therapy, and believe in the power of healing through and within relationships. I am passionate about creating a safe and understanding environment to foster personal growth and exploring more healthy ways of interacting with the world to enhance overall wellness.
My emphasis for helping individuals understand, adapt, cope, and interact with the world in healthy ways is focused on building therapeutic rapport and utilizing a holistic approach to achieve growth and stability. I approach each individual, couple, and family as unique and tailor my approach/intervention to the person’s specific barriers and needs for fulfillment. This occurs through developing insight into patterns of communication and behavior through a lens of self-compassion, self-awareness and skills-based coping techniques. I use a combination of therapy with an integrative approach of evidence-based techniques including cognitive behavioral (CBT), dialectical behavioral (DBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and stress training and interpersonal effectiveness regulation (STAIR).
In my practice, I place a special focus on how we, as humans, develop patterns of interacting with the world based on our experiences throughout our lifespan. Treatment includes examining how our experiences from childhood, adolescence, and adulthood are interconnected and greatly influence how we learn to adapt and relate to the world around us. As such, we create schemas, or narratives for the meaning of events that occur in our lives that can lead to mental health concerns, relationship strain and distress, and overall affects our behavior as a whole. Examining and understanding how these experiences (traumatic or non-traumatic) have influenced clients belief systems, interpersonal relationships, and communication is imperative in achieving self-awareness. Once an individual is aware of the influence of these life events on our cognitions and behaviors, adaptations and more helpful ways of coping can be implemented to greatly improve our quality of life through skill building and identifying and modifying our beliefs to be more helpful and accurate. As unique individuals, couples and families, together we will design a treatment plan specific to your needs and adapt the plan as needed. I believe all clients have the resources within them to heal; sometimes we just need assistance accessing and applying those internal strengths we already possess.
EMOTIONAL REGULATION/DISTRESS TOLERANCE SPECIALIZATION
Stress can have a lasting, significant impact on psychological, physical, and emotional levels of functioning. As a result of life events, and everyday stressors, our tolerance for certain levels of stress may decline overtime. This can lead to difficulties communicating your emotions effectively and concerns with regulating the emotional intensity resulting in behaviors that can be unhelpful and impact our relationships with the self and others. Disorders including those related to personality traits and patterns, as well as complex trauma can be managed through evidence-based therapies including dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), and stress training and affective interpersonal regulation (STAIR). In addition, adolescents may have a particular difficulty with managing emotion and tolerating stress. The part of the brain that regulates impulse control and inhibition is not developed until early adulthood, resulting in increased concerns with managing emotion effectively in the absence of being reactive.
I specialize in approaches for both adolescents and adults with specific concerns regarding their ability to cope with stress effectively through skill building, identifying and increasing emotional awareness, identifying beliefs and behaviors that impact communication and interpersonal functioning. Client’s will also be able to develop and test alternative ways of coping with stress, learning strategies for communication styles and assertiveness training, setting boundaries, as well as improving flexibility for our expectations of our own and others behaviors. Such interventions can be especially beneficial for enhancing our interpersonal relationships and finding a more compassionate self.
COUPLES AND FAMILY THERAPY SPECIALIZATION
Throughout psychological literature, human connection has proven to be a basic need for human survival. In one study, baby monkeys preferred a soft place to lay their head versus being fed with a bottle by a wire monkey. They chose connection and love over their innate need for food. As humans, one of our basic needs is to feel loved, cared for and feel connected to others in their relationships. When relationships with partners, friends, or family members are strained and tense, it has a significant impact on our overall well-being. This can lead to distrust in others to provide love and security, issues with intimacy, insecurities with our beliefs about being worthy/lovable, and difficulty communicating our needs to our loved ones in ways that we feel heard. Relationships are powerful and healing innately, through techniques including Gottman Therapy, couples behavior therapy, couples therapy for PTSD (if one or both partners have trauma), and family systems therapy, I will work with your relationship to chose which intervention would be most beneficial for your current needs.
As a provider, I take an active role in helping to identify the underlying source of distress in the relationship, and ways these issues have impacted various areas of functioning in the relationship. Once the primary concerns have been identified, the emphasis is on creating goals for the relationship and actively working to adapt unhealthy relationship dynamics with more helpful, healing communication patterns. We will discuss specific ways and skills to resolve each of the concerns and discern what patterns are working and which are not for the relationship currently. Learning to reconnect with your partner, family member, or other significant person in your life is an invaluable investment in your overall wellness. I am passionate about creating a safe space where all parties feel heard, and have a voice. In therapy, the relationship is the client versus each individual as the goal is to heal and achieve growth in the relationship.
MOOD AND ANXIETY DISORDERS
I have a specialization in treating mood disorders, including bipolar spectrum disorders, major depressive/other depressive disorders, and postpartum disorder. In addition, I also treat anxiety disorders ranging from generalized anxiety disorders to panic disorder, and phobias. Mood and anxiety disorders are referred to as “siblings” because prolonged anxiety can result in feeling depressed about one’s ability to control the physiological and psychological symptoms of anxiety. I utilize approaches grounded in compassion and other evidence-based therapies that have high efficacy rates in improving symptoms of depression. Whether the depression or anxiety results from work, home, recent life events, or former events that occurred throughout life, we would identify the foundation of the beliefs driving the depression or anxiety.
Often times, we have triggers in our environment outside of our awareness that exacerbate symptoms and may lead to feelings of isolation, worthlessness, hopelessness, and feelings of being stuck and overwhelmed. Intervention focuses on those beliefs that keep someone “stuck” and identifying emotions driving the behaviors (i.e., irritability, panic, sleep issues) and adapt new, more helpful and accurate beliefs. In addition, specific interventions and coping skills will be discussed and implemented to assist the client in experiencing much deserved relief and an opportunity to live a more fulfilling life.
OTHER PSYCHOTHERAPY SPECIALTIES
Addiction
Relapse Prevention
Insomnia
PTSD and trauma
Adjustment to Disability
Grief Counseling