Rita Vatcher in Natick, Massachusetts, provides outpatient therapy to children and families:
• Service Coordination • Assessments • Individualized Treatment Plans • Play Therapy and therapy based on the best evidence-based interventions • Positive Parent Support Treatment Plans
Rita Vatcher was practicing as a Registered Play Therapist with Advocates Community Counseling in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Advocates is a trauma-informed agency whose mission it is to help people achieve their hopes and dreams within the fabric of their communities with mental health counseling for children.
As a Mental Health Counselor and Registered Play Therapist, my goal is to establish a safe therapeutic alliance to help children, adolescents, and adults develop resiliency, create positive supports, and build a strong foundation.
Building Resiliency in Kids
Together we conduct a clinical assessment and develop treatment planning that reflects strength-based, individualized goals, and objectives with cultural sensitivity for kids with mental disorders.
As a Mental Health Counselor and Registered Play Therapist, I focus on empowerment, development of positive goal setting, building supports, symptom management, emotion regulation, coping skills, visualization, validation, and positive outlooks.
Play therapy is mental health counseling that integrates Child-Centered, Attachment-based, Family-Play, Filial, Solution-Focused, Jungian, Adlerian, Behavioral, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Theraplay®, EMDR and Psychoanalytic interventions.
Also, we use art therapy, sand tray, drama, mindfulness, and many more. We work on problem-solving, coping skills, emotion identification, emotion regulation, social skills, visualization, mindfulness, finding successful solutions, clarifying means of achieving them with validation and praise.
Rita has been an outspoken leader in the community for children and families
This is one of three videos created to promote the importance of outpatient services in the community. We are seeing a rise in bullying in our schools, opioid use among young people, and more anxiety in our children than ever before. Community mental health care can be a friend to families, parents, children, and adolescents who seek a way to cope with increasing stressors in their environment. Outpatient providers teach individuals ways to be resilient and give them the coping "toolbox" of skills to improve their sense of well-being.
Catherine Auth
About Catherine Auth in Natick, MA
Catherine Auth in Natick, Massachusetts, provides outpatient therapy to children and families:
• Child-centered therapy • Sand play therapy • Expressive arts therapy • Attachment based and trauma treatment • Positive Collaborative Parent Support
Catherine Auth is a seasoned psychotherapist with a master’s degree in clinical social work from Smith College. She has a post graduate certificate from the Boston Institute of Psychotherapy. Over the span of her career, she has provided psychodynamic psychotherapy to children and adults in multicultural outpatient settings.
She has developed a specialty in play therapy with young children using a child-centered approach, sand play therapy, expressive arts to help children express themselves through their own language of play.
Her training in attachment based and trauma treatment has “informed” her therapy with children and their families. Her framework is collaborative with the primary focus on increasing awareness and expression of feelings; developing capacity to regulate emotions; learning new ways of coping and building strong attachment relationships.
Testimonials
Tara Z
Rita worked with B for quite a bit of time. He never would have thought of the sorts of things in this picture without her support and guidance! This was completed as a homework assignment for school where the kids were asked to encapsulate the school motto: MUSTANGS.
Must Understand Steps to Achieve New Goals Successfully
Some positive self-talk that she worked on with him when he started with her was, “I can be on time for school”.
This was hugely because he refused to go to school-and almost every time he did, we would have to run while staff held him in the school crying ? ...now this!
B is now asked to go to social skills groups as a role model! ...or help the “new kid in school” (even though he just started there in September). He is willing to talk about the struggles he has faced and is proud of himself to be able to help other kids know that it will pass, and they will get through it.
Seriously-10 years old! While at 4 he hid under chairs and wouldn’t interact with most.
Rita worked through some tough times with Brayden, and our family, and I can’t thank her enough!
Joanne S
My son who is on the spectrum worked with Rita (play therapy). He is extremely selective with people and there have been many therapists who were unable to connect with him. Rita came in and it was almost instant. She had a calming effect on him! Rita is kind and genuine. I canNOT recommend her more highly!
Valeska T.
Rita worked with my son doing play therapy. He has autism and sensory processing disorder, the latter being the biggest problem. She would come in bringing bins of toys including a sand table! All to get him to open up while playing. It’s hard to find a trustworthy therapist, we were happy to find Rita.
Recommendations
Robert Cherney
Chief Psychologist ; Advocates Inc. April 10, 2017, Robert managed Rita directly
Rita is an excellent therapist who specializes in the treatment of children and adolescents. She is a critical member of our outpatient mental health clinic team. Her intelligence, commitment, wealth of knowledge, as well as her compassion and empathy all combine to create effective interventions and lasting positive therapeutic results for her clients and their families. She is a team player who supports the goals of our organization while maintaining good collegial relationships with staff members. I have supervised Rita directly and find her to be a warm and sensitive clinician who displays a curious mind as well as a healing heart. I can recommend her to you without reservation.
Amy Kopczynski
Mental Health Therapist in Private Practice November 17, 2016, Amy managed Rita directly
Rita is a thoughtful, compassionate, and skillful child therapist. Her specialization in play therapy both engages children in the therapeutic process and also leads to great healing and growth. I highly recommend Rita as a mental health therapist.
Penny Haney, Ph.D.
Clinical & Forensic Psychologist at Boston College and Private Practice September 11, 2012, Rita was a student of Penny’s
Rita was a student in two classes I taught during her Masters in Counseling program. She is an enthusiastic learner, conscientious and mature -- she is invested in her field and in helping the clients with whom she works.
