Dr. Cecilia Phillips-Binder works with adults in individual and couples therapy. She addresses problems commonly faced in today’s hectic and stress-ridden modern world, including relationship issues, self-image and body image concerns, women’s issues, life transitions, and personal growth. She also works with the common conditions of depression, anxiety, grief and loss, trauma, and stress management. Dr. Phillips-Binder has a special interest in helping women as they develop a career and manage romantic, marital, and parenting aspirations.

Dr. Phillips-Binder has extensive experience working with people who have chronic and serious physical illnesses, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and pulmonary disease. She has a special interest in helping people manage the psychological difficulties of terminal illness.

Dr. Phillips-Binder believes that mood, thinking, and behavior are all affected by a sense of belonging and closeness in important relationships. “Very early in our lives we develop patterns in the ways we relate to people close to us. These patterns persist into adulthood and affect the quality of our relationships. We also construct a self-image based on interactions in our important early relationships, which affects how we feel, think, and behave in relationship to our self…how we take care of ourselves.” Coming from this perspective, Dr. Phillips Binder emphasizes that the primary goals of psychotherapy include identifying and changing problematic relationship patterns and improving self-image. “My experience suggests that as clients develop greater awareness of themselves and how they relate to others and greater acceptance of themselves, their symptoms tends to diminish and they tend to experience decreased stress and increased capacity for creativity, joy, and fulfillment in their lives.”

Dr. Phillips-Binder’s believes that psychotherapy is a collaborative process. Further, providing safety, acceptance, and honesty is an important part of the therapy since, “Clients can only explore the difficult and very personal issues that are important to their lives within a safe, collaborative environment.”

Dr. Phillips-Binder was inspired to become a psychotherapist while working as a research assistant on one of the major psychotherapy research projects conducted during the 1980’s. As a single mother of two teenagers, she received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Vanderbilt University in 1995. Dr. Phillips-Binder recently moved to Atlanta from Nashville, Tennessee, where she was in clinical practice for twelve years. For the past ten years, in her private practice she specialized in working with professionals in business, health care, entertainment, and academics, as well as their family members. She joined PFPA in the Spring, 2007 and has immediate openings for people seeking individual or couples therapy in the Buckhead and Marietta offices.