Cynthia Wilcox

Cynthia Wilcox is a licensed clinical social worker with over 50 years of experience. She has been in a sole practice for most of those years. After understanding the initial problem presented, she takes a detailed family history. Even though this may seem labor intensive, it begins to show patterns that got their start in early childhood. As young pre-verbal children we assess the "garden we were thrown into and begin to develop survival skills. These survival skills often become our adult problems. An example would be learning to be passive as a way to survive which may have worked then but does not help as the only strategy for adult interactions. Also problem patterns many develop in a repetitive way as when a person whose father abandoned the family has a pattern of only being attracted to unavailable men in the hopes of repairing that damage this time.

Most people arrive in therapy because they are stuck in these old patterns. Cynthia sees her job as identifying those patterns and then helping the client develop new patterns be they of thought or behavior. It often involves letting go of relentless hope that things will change if they just hold on to the old stuff. Cynthia has studied for years with Martha Stark MD at Harvard with her program called The Transformative Power of Optimal Stress. It involves supporting and gently pushing clients to give up old patterns and develop new narratives.

Cynthia's clients see her as very supportive but also "pushy" as she helps them moved along. A client once said to a friend, " You should go see my therapist, Cynthia, but not if you only want someone to listen and commiserate with you!" At 81, she is still at it!!!