Dr. Cecilia Sophia Dominguez, Ph.D. is a practicing Licensed Professional Counselor since 2006 in Community College settings as well as in four prison systems.

Dr. Dominguez has a Masters degree in Counseling, with an emphasis in Career Counseling from Chapman University, Orange, CA., and has also earned her PhD at the University of Texas at San Antonio in Counselor Education and Supervision.

Dr. Dominguez’s counseling background consists of working with various adult populations, such as military personnel, college students, and prison-inmates in areas involving anxiety, mood changes, depression, stress, internal conflicts, grief and loss, relationships, and more. She truly enjoys learning and used that passion to earn seven degrees.

Her role as your counselor is to help you explore and discover known and unknown issues toward desired changes and goals. This guided process involves exploring your current thoughts, beliefs, actions, and emotions that may be impeding your best YOU. The two of you will explore action-oriented recommendations. Again, she commend you for being proactive in your life and for making an excellent decision to seek transformative counseling!

Dr. Dominguez’s approach is to provide support, establish rapport, and build trust as well as providing hands-on strategies to assist you in your life stressors. She uses intentional, active listening when gathering information about your life, and pays close attention to verbal and nonverbal communication style. She naturally tends to use an encouragement style of therapy, for instance, she will applaud your proactiveness in making strides toward changing your life by participating in counseling. Additional theoretical approaches she uses include: Cognitive Behavioral and Mindfulness based (such as exploring automatic thoughts or patterns and beliefs, laddering, breathing, meditation, guided visualization, reflection exercises), or some other guided discovery technique for awareness of current feelings, behaviors, and thoughts. Based upon the session,homework, such as journaling or affirmations, would normally be encouraged.

She could also guide you through Solution Focused Therapy; in finding your own solutions by exploring your vision for the future, in exploring strengths/weaknesses [emphasis on strengths] in past successes, present and future needs (prioritization), as well as explore Pro’s and Con’s of potential goals.

Depending on counseling goals and priorities, she could provide Career Development and Life Skills goal setting, time management, budgeting, resume writing, employment interviewing, as well as explore life and career values and personality tendencies.

Over thirty years ago, Dr. C. Sophia Dominguez had the opportunity to participate in Steven Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People program. This opportunity definitely influenced her perception, as well as her growth and development. She has learned so much about herself that she made a decision to help others help themselves in becoming more self-aware. Her initial mantra of "The older I get, the more I find out, the more I don't know" eventually changed to her current mantra of "The Older I get, the Better I get." Either way, it's a choice she makes from a belief she has intentionally instilled in her through various self-awareness opportunities. Everything she does, day-to-day, is influenced by her deliberate intention of becoming her best self.