Elena Vassallo Crossman, M.Div, LCPC, is the program director and co-owner of Integrative Psychotherapy Associates, LLC, and has been practicing as a psychotherapist for over 20 years. She uses a variety of modalities when helping clients with depression, anxiety, marital/relational issues, parenting challenges, phase-of-life transitions, grief and loss, low self-esteem and identity consolidation. Primarily psychodynamic in her orientation, she is particularly experienced at helping clients understand the way their family-of-origin based patterns of thought and behavior restrict and affect their adult experience. Elena has a non-pathologizing understanding of the need for psychotherapy; she provides a challenging but empathic and safe climate in which her clients can begin, or continue, their growth process. Elena’s training and her interest in religious life give her a foundation for working with clients who bring an interest in spirituality to their therapeutic work, and she works with many pastors, seminary students and religious or spiritual individuals. In recent years her practice has come to include many new mothers and fathers, as well as individuals experiencing pregnancy loss and infertility. She is also available for pre-marital counseling.
Elena received her Master of Divinity degree, with a focus on religion and psychological studies, from The Divinity School of The University of Chicago where she also previously taught Pastoral Care and Counseling. She received her clinical training at The Center for for Religion and Psychotherapy of Chicago where she previously served as Intake Coordinator, Supervisor to pastoral counselors in formation, and as the convener of professional development seminar for clinicans-in-training. She is a Fellow in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and an ordained minister in the Christian Church.
