Living Well Counseling
By Rebecca Cross
Athena Chasteen has over 20 years of experience serving victims of domestic violence and sexual assault at Albemarle Hopeline in Elizabeth City. Now she is getting ready to expand into “Living Well Counseling” where she will be stepping out to serve families in different ways through her new private practice office. The new office will be open part time in the evening hours by appointment only in The Habit Building on Main Street. Athena is a licensed clinician whose personality drew her to the work. In her new private practice she will provide individual and couples therapy for ages late adolescence through adult. Her focus will be on general mental health wellness, dealing with anxiety, depression, family issues, pre-marital therapy, post-traumatic stress, etc. “When parents do well – kids do well,” said Chasteen, “We need to help parents model more happy behavior and lift families up one individual at a time.” Ms. Chasteen explained that we “pour tons of resources” into reaching out to kids, but if the caretaking adult is not helped, the kids are returned to the same “broken” or “unhealthy” environment. “There is a real need for sound over all wellness – people are truly more stressed, and we’ve seen an increase in chronic stress”, she commented. Ms. Chasteen said that by bringing balance to a family you’re serving, everyone connected to that family, or person, is impacted as well. She picked downtown Elizabeth City for its central location as well as the feeling that it is a comfortable area to open up this kind of business. Her opening will be December 7th, 2010 and she can be reached for appointment at 252-333-6866.