Psychological Services PC

Specialities

Stress/Anxiety

Our therapists are trained to meet you where you’re at – we can help you to begin to understand and address the overwhelming feeling of stress and worry, while also assisting you in finding ways to better manage and address these concerns.

Depression

We are dedicated to providing a safe space where the suffering, hopelessness, and fear of depression can be explored. We recognize the strength in sharing this vulnerable time in your life and we want to help you harness your strength in creating change.

Couples, Marital, & Relationship Disharmony

Whether you and your partner may simply want to increase your communication skills to strengthen your connection, become more aware of your emotions and needs, or need help reshaping some problematic patterns that seem to be developing, we are here for whatever your needs may be.

Pre-Marital/Pre-Commitment Therapy

Our goal is to help you and your partner have a deeper understanding of yourself and each other through covering a variety of topics such as communication, the role of friends and family members, sharing responsibilities, managing finances, and so much more.

Social/Interpersonal Difficulties

We will work with you to better understand the root of your difficulties in social situations to help you find mastery over it. Our aim is to help you approach social situations freer from anxiety, feeling more confident and self-assured in engaging others and asserting for yourself.

Dysfunctional Family Experiences

Our therapists have expertise working with family-related issues. We will work to assist you in clarifying how to best manage family situations and relationships, and to make difficult decisions regarding your family as well as sorting through your own process of healing past and current emotional pain and difficulties.

Grief & Loss

Times of grief and loss can be isolating but seeking out for help can be the opportunity for you to find support during a painful time. We are available to discuss and explore topics of loss, life transition, grief, and death in a way that can help you sort through this without shame and aloneness. 

Life Transitions

Our therapists recognize that transitions can become overwhelming and debilitating by creating anxiety, stress, and indecision. Whether it’s processing periods of transition you’ve experienced throughout your life or exploring your feelings and needs that accompany these challenging times, we are dedicated to supporting you as you find your way through these periods.

Self-Esteem & Self-Image Issues

Whether we find it difficult to recognize strengths in ourselves or we experience problems with self-worth about our job, our therapists are ready to begin exploring where these “standards” come from and to help you build a foundation of strength and worth, where you don’t need to be reliant on external worth to keep you going.

Professional & Personal Balance

Our staff can help you explore how limit setting and better boundaries can empower you to prioritize what’s most important to you, while also finding ways to sufficiently tackle the more cumbersome but necessary tasks in your life so that you can work toward a balance that is more manageable.

Specialties - Sexuality and Gender Issues

Sexuality & Gender Issues

Our staff have a passion for working with sexual and gender minorities and understand that there are societal, cultural, and relational factors that impact one’s various intersecting identities. We are committed to providing affirmative therapy to the LGBTQIAP+ community and creating a strong therapeutic relationship where clients can further understand, examine, and accept their most authentic selves

Substance Use Concerns/Addiction

Psychological Services staff have additional training and education in treating compulsive behaviors and addiction/substance use issues, and Dr. Bricker –Psychological Services’ director who holds senior-level certification as an Alcohol and Drug Counselor – provides treatment and consults regularly with the PS, PC staff to ensure that clients seeking treatment for these concerns get exceptional and scientifically-informed care in finding their way to freedom from these difficult to manage issues.

Cultural Adjustment / Multicultural Concerns

Our staff pride ourselves on being aware and attuned to the intersectionality of identities that a client may bring into session. There can often be instances where one’s cultural upbringing instilled values or practices clash with our current environment, and we are stuck on how to navigate it. We understand that these intersecting identities may influence the therapeutic process and we look to engaging in that process with you.

LGBTQIAP+

Our staff have a passion for working with sexual and gender minorities and understand that there are societal, cultural, and relational factors that impact one’s various intersecting identities. We are committed to providing affirmative therapy to the LGBTQIAP+ community and creating a strong therapeutic relationship where clients can further understand, examine, and accept their most authentic selves.

Daniel Lovan

Approach

“I believe that people heal, grow, and thrive when they are able to genuinely connect with someone who makes them feel deeply seen and allows them to explore their emotional needs and desires. That’s why I strive to compassionately understand my clients and provide them with a safe and warm psychotherapy environment where we can collaboratively improve your mental health and well-being.

My Interventions
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
• Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT)
• Multicultural Therapy
I address client’s needs through a mix of person centered and cognitive approaches to help clients explore patterns of negative thought, identify core feelings, and practice new coping skills. For many LGBTQ+ clients I also address concerns through a multicultural lens in order to take into account the many ways in which an individual’s intersectional identities may be at odds with living their life authentically.”

Education & Training
• Loyola University Chicago- M.A. Community Counseling
• St. Elizabeth’s Hospital Outpatient Mental Behavioral Health- Internship
• Saint Louis University- B.S. Psychology
I tend to work with adolescents and adults experiencing a wide variety of concerns including depression, anxiety, trauma, loss, parenting concerns, and social struggles. I am particularly passionate about working with LGBTQ+ individuals with religious and spiritual concerns.

Amy Rivas

Qualifications & Training

  • I received my EdS in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Loyola University Chicago
  • I received my BS in Psychology from Pacific Union College
  • I am Licensed Professional Counselor with the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.
  • I am bilingual and conduct therapy in English and Spanish

Who I Work With

I work with adults, couples, and families who are navigating trauma, depression, anxiety, relationship/attachment issues, and life-transitions. I am also passionate working with those in the LGBTQIA+ community, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), and bi-cultural/bilingual individuals.
A lot of the clients I work with, whether therapy newcomers or seasons therapy goers, are hoping to carve a dedicated space to gain insight, reflect, and process their reason for seeking therapy.

Working with me

I know for a lot of people the choice to attend therapy can be a difficult one so I will always honor your effort and strength in making this choice. I work from a psychodynamic, attachment based, and also incorporate emotion-focused therapy (EFT) techniques. This basically all means that I like to process past traumas or past relationships to understand how that’s impacting our current way of understanding our world.
You can often find me also incorporating grounding/self-regulation techniques into my sessions with clients as a tool for dysregulation, numbness, and disassociation. I’m a firm believer that our bodies carry our traumas and stress so its important that we incorporate a body-based, somatic techniques to assist with our bodies also healing.

Lilia Berkovich

Dr. Berkovich received her Bachelor’s Degree from Tel-Aviv University in Israel and her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (PsyD) from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, Illinois. In addition to her work at Psychological Services, PC, Dr. Berkovich has worked in medical and psychiatric hospitals, drug and alcohol treatment centers, the juvenile court/probation system, and schools.

My Mission

In my work with clients I rely primarily on relational-psychodynamic, mindbody, and trauma-informed perspectives. I believe that growth and change are achieved by shedding light on those sides of ourselves that we are not in direct contact with, as well as learning new ways of being with others. I strive for therapy to provide a genuine, stimulating, and welcoming space to interact openly and experience new emotions.

Working with me

While I adjust my therapeutic goals to each client’s presenting concerns, goals, and needs, I tend to focus on increasing emotional insight and developing effective internal coping mechanisms. In sessions we might choose to process patterns that show up in the client’s past and present relationships, as well as address the “here-and-now” of the therapy session. I might provide reflections and feedback as a way to help my client see themselves and their situation from a new angle. We may focus on feelings, thoughts, physical experiences, and behaviors, and try to tap into new sources of information about the client’s self. As a multicultural clinician, I recognize the importance of our cultural experiences, and value the exploration of ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, physical ability, and other factors that shape identity and social interactions. As we work toward making everyday experiences less obscure, the client may feel more confident about expressing their true self, form more fulfilling connections with their environment, and find that they are better equipped to cope with distress and painful emotions.

Who I work with

I am a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in working with individuals struggling with trauma, mood dysregulation, overwhelming anxiety, stress-induced somatic symptoms, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, complex grief, substance misuse, and maladaptive interpersonal and relational behaviors. I also work with couples seeking help with relational well-being, communication, and conflict resolution

Michael Bricker

Approach

“I believe each of us is hard-wired with emotions that play an important role in how we understand our world and how we function internally, as well as in our relationships with others. When used adaptively, our emotions can serve to alert and orient us to what is important in our lives and can help inform how we cope with challenges and conflict. In contrast, when we feel stuck in our emotions, lack awareness of them, or are unable to express our feelings and needs, we can feel depressed, anxious or generally unhappy in our life, relationships, and/or career. This lack of clarity can also leave us feeling stranded; struggling to make sense of why we are feeling the way we do or what we need to make things better.
By exploring underlying emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in the context of a warm and empathic relationship, I assist individuals in learning how to use their emotional experience as a guide in recognizing, both generally and specifically, what they need from themselves and from others in order to feel content and resilient. This awareness also plays an integral role in helping them choose behaviors that are more satisfying and accommodating of their needs. In addition, I aim to help clients solidify a long-term framework for understanding how they organize themselves and make sense of their world and relationships, while helping to ensure that they have the tools needed to achieve consistent and lasting improvements in their lives well after therapy has ended.”
 

Dr. Bricker has been providing professional counseling services to individuals, groups, and couples for over 20 years. He earned his Masters degree in Counseling and his PhD in Counseling Psychology from The University of Memphis and holds licensure as a Clinical Psychologist (LCP) in the state of Illinois. 
In addition to his education and training in traditional psychotherapy approaches, Dr. Bricker has sought out specialized education and training in the practice of Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), a scientifically-supported psychotherapy approach for individuals and couples. Dr. Bricker is also an active lecturer and trainer on EFT and the adaptive use of emotion, and enjoys educating other mental health professionals in this area. Dr. Bricker also has extensive education and experience in providing services to couples (working from an Emotion-Focused Couples Therapy framework).  In addition, he has extensive education, training and experience working with individuals with addictions and substance use/abuse concerns.
Although Dr. Bricker’s varied clinical experiences in hospitals, mental health centers, outpatient clinics and counseling centers have prepared him to work with individuals and couples from diverse racial/ethnic/cultural backgrounds, and with wide-ranging concerns/diagnoses, he has developed a particular specialty in areas including: depression, anxiety, couples/relationship concerns, LGBTQ issues, grief/loss, and concerns unique to professionals in various domains who are navigating important roles in leadership and/or demanding careers.  
Dr. Bricker spends the majority of his clinical service providing psychotherapy to individual clients and couples; however, he is experienced in, and available to offer Executive Coaching, as well as organizational and clinical consultation to businesses and individuals.  In addition, he provides supervision and workshops in EFT for mental health professionals.

Outside the office, Dr. Bricker enjoys travel, cooking, attending events in the arts, physical fitness, and spending time with his family and friends.