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Janice Pimentel
About
Hello and welcome! We are pleased to see you here at Prosper Health. My name is Janice Pimentel and I have been working in the mental health field since the 1980's and have been a licensed psychologist since the early 2000's. I have worked in a wide variety of settings with populations from age 8 to 98. In my experience, one unifying theme seems to be serving underserved and/or marginalized populations. Whether LGBTQIA+, indigent, homeless, fertility challenged, or serious mental illnesses including psychoses serving them in civil hospitals, prisons, forensic hospitals, and outpatient settings from Washington state to Maine, from Alaska to China, from England to my home state of Florida. I try to approach every therapeutic interaction offering dignity and curiousness to help identify the best path to help you achieve your goals for coming into care. With so much of my care surrounding trauma leading to PTSD, learning to create a safe space and recognizing your skills and abilities is at least as important as deficits or unhealthy patterns you may desire to change.
It became more evident through research that we were not necessarily just seeing an increase in the absolute number of cases diagnosed on the spectrum but rather there are entire generations who have spent their lives learning to function in a world not set up to help them succeed. For me, this fell right in line with previous populations and turning my clinical skills toward those who may have slipped through the cracks of our educational or mental health systems seemed like a great use of time and energy. I love doing evaluations, whether for educational, vocational, health, collegiate, therapeutic or pre-employment reasons, so that we can help set you up for the best possible successes moving forward.
Almost without fail, when asked how I would approach a particular case, I respond in a generally similar way. I have found that leaning into what you already do well, strengthening useful but underutilized skills you already have, and helping to provide and practice new skills or compensatory behaviors when needed can lead to the best outcomes. Always, I keep in mind "is this working toward your goals?” If so, “Which one(s)” and “will it be a sustainable change after leaving care” are questions that help us keep YOUR goals, YOUR values and YOUR priorities as primary in the therapy room and treatment plan.
