Matthew McDonald
Matthew McDonald, L.C.P.C., L.M.F.T., is a graduate of Wheaton College with a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology. As a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, he has experience providing services to clientele with a diverse set of issues and concerns that has given Matt an appreciation for the uniqueness of every person's story. He believes that each individual and family should be treated with a holistic or “big picture” approach. With this perspective, Matt makes it a priority to address multiple facets of a client's life including mental, relational, physical, and spiritual health. His work includes a wide variety of service modalities for individual adults, adolescents and children. Matt's concern for cyclical problems that plague family life guides his work with families and couples. It's his easy going style that allows him to quickly build non-threatening relationships with children and adolescents. In his work to treat his clients' wide range of health needs, Matt implements several different treatment strategies and approaches as they are needed. Treatment is tailored to each individual as no two people are exactly alike.
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Mental Health:
Relational Health:
Physical Health:
Spiritual Health :
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Services for Adults : Guided by the perspective that all people have their own unique set of experiences and problems, Matt's aim through counseling is to help the individual achieve progress toward wellness by addressing issues of mental, emotional, relational, physical, and spiritual health. Issues will vary by client and therefore various treatment modalities may be used including cognitive-behavioral , psychodynamic , and solution focused strategies. Services for Children : Play therapy is a treatment strategy used with children that facilitates their expression of feelings and thoughts through specifically constructed games and role-play scenarios. Play therapy is the alternative to traditional “talk therapy” that rarely engages children in a way that they are able to safely express their feelings while also learning new skills such as communication, problem solving, coping skills, and self control. Services for Adolescents: Adolescents face an unstable and overwhelming world of cutting edge trends, emotional intensity, and interpersonal uncertainty that often leaves them closed off, defensive, and oppositional. Matt's laid back style helps to quickly build a relationship of trust with adolescents. In this non-threatening environment adolescents are able to explore issues that face today's teens and learn new coping skills to deal with them. Services for Couples and Families : Often problems in families are cyclical, having been passed down from one generation to the next. For this reason Matt's focus in working with families is on eliminating these cycles that plague today's family. No matter what stage of life one is in, counseling provides interventions to help improve the relationships in the family. Working from a family systems treatment model the idea is that if one part of the family system is changed for the better, the rest of the system will also be affected positively. |
Treatment strategies include:
Family Systems : Understanding how each individual plays a part in a family and how changing the behavior of one part can create change for the entire system/family.
Cognitive-Behavioral : Using the relationships of ones thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to create change.
Psychodynamic : Understanding how ones past experiences have created ones view of the world and using this understanding to promote insight and change.
Christian counseling : Integrating a person's beliefs and religious values into the treatment of their particular issues.
Locations: Hoffman Estates