James Rao, PhD, LICSW

James Rao, PhD, LICSW has been working in the field of mental health since 1998. He provides counseling to adults through individual and couples psychotherapy and is able to draw on extensive experience in a variety of settings and with many different populations. Dr. Rao has provided therapy in an outpatient clinic setting since 2005. He also spent 8 years counseling chronically ill patients (and their families) as they coped with chronic kidney and liver disease at a hospital organ transplant center. His experience has included providing therapy to graduate and undergraduate students at several different Universities. In an outpatient mental health setting he has provided mental health treatment for adults, children,and adolescents in short, moderate and long-term frameworks.

He has experience in helping people with depression, anxiety, phobias, social discomfort, low self-esteem, OCD, ADHD, trauma, grief, anger control, difficulty adjusting to life circumstances, coping with chronic illness, complicated family dynamics, insomnia/disrupted sleep and substance use. Dr. Rao has facilitated anger management groups in the past and is also very familiar with the dynamics involved in substance abuse and the treatment of addictive disorders.

Dr. Rao has also been certified in Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Insomnia through The University of Massachusetts Medical School. He has been trained in psycho-dynamic psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, ACT and DBT. He has applied CBT and EMDR strategies and techniques for the treatment of trauma.