Loading Page
Deborah B. Metroka, MA, LCPC is a counselor in Lake In The Hills, IL specializing in counseling.
Connect with this therapist via:
Video Visits - connect over video conferencing software for a virtual session -- almost as if you're there in person
Connecting with a therapist can be difficult. BetterHelp can help with that. They have an online network of licensed and accredited psychologists, marriage and family therapists, clinical social workers, and counselors. You can connect with their therapists via online video, phone, real-time chat, or asynchronous messaging. Easily switch therapists until you find one that fits you. Sign up through DocSpot for a discount on your first month's subscription.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT, is a form of psychotherapy or treatment for mental illness. It comes in a variety of methods, but the basic concept behind all CBT is the same -- thoughts cause feelings, which cause actions. If someone wishes to change problematic behaviors or emotions in their lives, they need to start by changing their thoughts. CBT examines ideas and looks for patterns that may be causing harmful actions. The therapist helps patients modify those thought patterns and, in doing so, helps them feel better and cope more effectively.
CBT is one of the most widely studied forms of psychotherapy, and it has been shown to be extremely effective for a variety of mental illnesses. Some of the issues that respond well to CBT include mood disorders, personality disorders, eating disorders, substance abuse, sleep disorders, and psychotic disorders. In some cases, CBT has been shown to be as effective or even more effective than medication. One of the interesting things that the scientific study of CBT has shown is that CBT actually changes the way the brain works, physically improving its function.
CBT differs from traditional psychotherapy in a few key ways. One of the most important distinctions is the emphasis on the power and responsibility of the patient in CBT. The patient will be encouraged to be the one asking the questions in CBT therapy, and most patients are assigned homework to complete outside of therapy sessions. There is a concept in CBT that everyone has power the power to change how they feel, even if they cannot control the situation, and this can be very empowering for patients. Because of this power shift, the therapist-client relationship is not as critical to success in CBT as it is in other modes of therapy. Patients should still get along well with their therapists, but they do not need a deep, dependent emotional connection to them. Finally, because CBT often treats a specific issue or problem, it is usually shorter in duration than traditional therapy. While some therapies may continue for years, CBT lasts on average just 16 sessions.
Family Issues
The famed writer Leo Tolstoy once wrote, "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Family issues are problems that occur amongst members of an immediate, extended, or adopted family. Many forms of family issues exist and can vary in intensity and in duration. Nearly every family will experience a negative family issue at some point.
Each family member can be affected by an issue in an individual and unique way, typically depending on age, maturity, and involvement. This means that family issues are often inequitable, with one or more family members bearing a disproportionate weight of the problem. A frequent example is parental divorce. While both parents may appreciate the immediate relief, divorce can rapidly threaten a developing child's sense of stability and self-confidence. Similarly, a mother who is subject to domestic abuse may conceal the issue in order to shield her children from her distress. In some cases, family issues are generational; a father may cause residual guilt or disagreements from his childhood to carry forward to his own son. While each family's experience is unique, common family issues can include:
Some family issues are inevitable – such as retirement and minor lifestyle disagreements – while others can be unexpected and dramatic. Unsafe household environments, abuse, and neglect can lead to severe trauma and intervention by social services or law enforcement.
Most common family issues can be addressed through therapy with one or more family members. Family therapy involves sessions led by a licensed mental health therapist. These sessions often include family discussion, resolution strategies, and other activities to promote family harmony. Another form of treatment for family issues is couples counseling, in which a couples counselor can help spouses communicate and employ problem-solving techniques to improve the strength of their relationship. For children, specialized child therapy can help children and adolescents manage and overcome family issues with age-appropriate methods.
Some people find individual therapy or counseling beneficial in resolving family issues, especially for those who are unable to attend family therapy with other family members. Therapists may encourage the creation of family boundaries. At an extreme, therapy may cause an adult to come to the conclusion that communication with a narcissistic parent must stop in order to preserve mental health and wellbeing.
Family Therapy Services
Family therapy is sometimes also called family counseling or marriage and family therapy. It is a form of mental health care and therapy that treats a couple or entire family as a unit, paying special attention to how the members of the family interact with each other. Each family has a unique personality, communication style, and unique problems they face together. In family therapy, all members of the family attend counseling sessions as a group, and together they learn how to identify conflicts within and without the family, as well as how to communicate better and problem-solve together.
Some topics commonly addressed in family therapy include:
Family therapists may work in group practices, private practices, schools, or hospitals. They work with families of all different kinds to help them live together as a stronger unit.
She has a state license in Illinois.
Licensed In: Illinois
Deborah B. Metroka, MA, LCPC has an average of 1.0 out of 5 stars based on 1 ratings. We collect ratings and reviews of Deborah B. Metroka, MA, LCPC from all over the web to help you find the right in Lake In The Hills, IL.
Ben Gesing was not even my therapist. I was seeing Deborah Metroka for help in a domestic violence situation from a literal psychopath. I referred Karl Ulrich to Dr. Todd Lendvay who figured out Karl's BS in less than 48 hours and Karl went into a rage and dropped him. I was seeing Metroka after choosing suicide as the only way to escape psychopathic abuse. The day of my suicide, Karl sat on speaker phone with his babe casually talking while I listened. The same voice is on a YouTube video by Karl named September 1, 2019, two days home from a vacation I thought was going to save our marriage. Karl did not know that I could hear while unconscious as they formed a plan to cover for why they took so long to call 911 (over an hour based on Karl’s Google history I found later). Gesing was my 2nd choice and is apparently either completely oblivious or intentionally sadistic. Karl seemed to have charmed Ben quite easily and convinced Gesing that Karl Ulrich (Jacobs High School, Algonquin, IL CUSD300) is the poor victim of my abuse. (Audio recordings included below). I found evidence Karl joined narcissist and suicide grief support groups on MeetUp and Facebook where he met vulnerable women who fell for his BS. Meanwhile, as women flocked to support Karl, he was destroying me at home with Gesing and Metroka’s help. The worse the abuse Karl dished on me, the more support HE received from women. Karl had full control of me through isolation and finances. He allowed me no freedom until I finally could not take it anymore and chose suicide as the only financial way to escape his abuse. Of course, mental health incompetence looks at the victim being at fault (See Dr. Jessica Taylor's book Sexy but Psycho where she wrote about my situation) while the abuser, Karl Ulrich was coddled. Gesing never met me or talked to me. Metroka, for all her years of counseling is not yet at Psych 101, but apparently Gesing could not figure that out. I was trying to leave Metroka less than a month after seeing her, but Karl would not let me (it is on audio in March recordings). Also on recording is Karl threatening to blow his head off with a gun on 7.6.20 that Gesing/Metroka ignored. I brought it to Carpentersville police who also ignored it, not realizing Karl Ulrich, the con artist was working to get me locked in a psych ward to keep his secrets intact. In audio recordings Karl states “Ben said you are schizophrenic” (Ben never met or talked to me) “you are going to be locked up” throughout the summer of 2020. Karl is a maintenance boy who suddenly was speaking psych language with accuracy. I had no idea Ben was feeding the beast and my attempts to reach out and warn Ben and Deborah were ignored. It was/is crazy making. I tried to use ROI's for the four of us to meet (Karl agreed on 7/5/20 recording) but the three of them used the ROI's to meet behind my back to help Karl get guardianship of me because as Ben said in clinical notes, 8.4.20 "Karl’s challenges managing his anger” (note the actual victims needs were ignored in that comment). Ben was going to “talk to Karl about financially supporting the help I needed but “acknowledged finances were limited (because Karl was cheating and Ben had the evidence). Ben stated “Karl cares about me, is worried and INSISTS he is not having affairs” (remember Ben has evidence Karl is lying but ignored it). on 8.27.20 notes state that I needed "reality testing" for "delusions" of Karl's affairs because Karl assured Ben he was not. Ben Gesing had evidence and recordings emailed to him from my Google drive from 7/13/20 to 10/17/20 that he ignored, taking Karl at his word. Metroka had hard copy evidence that she dated 1.13.20 but did not pass on to Gesing. Karl had me under such control and surveillance, including Voyeurcams.com (I have documentation and evidence of all of this), and was cheating on me our entire 19 year marriage. Karl soul murdered me. He married me knowing extreme childhood trauma and said we were “soul mates” who would be together forever. I learned that he married me to get at the equity in my home which he promptly used to pay his previous girlfriend whom he was with throughout our marriage. Karl lived on loans and lines of credit, forging my name the entire marriage to finance, at this point 287 women, and it looks like three children with other women, one as early as 2006. We married in 2002. Gesing ignored all of this. I wrote, called, emailed, Ben pleading to talk directly with him because I KNEW he had no clue. Karl and Metroka were apparently talking behind my back the entire time I saw her (Karl revealed this in audio recordings). Metroka noted on May 20, 2020 “experienced the worst abuse of any client I have worked with so far…understanding how challenging it has been for her” including sex trafficking revealed to her three months into counseling, but her only goal was that I get a job. I was FRIED from Karl’s abuse that she ENABLED and then Ben added to it. I had no idea that Karl impregnated a side chic before we left for a vacation to save our marriage and by this time, a little girl was born. Karl needed me out of his life and off his insurance which Metroka helped Karl to achieve. Every attempt I made for long term help, Deborah Metroka sabotaged and Ben drove the nail in the coffin placating his abusive client. I started having memory issues from Karl screaming at and controlling me from the day after I came home from the hospital. I had no idea that narcissistic abuse causes brain damage until I found Empowered Healing on TikTok. Certainly, Gesing and Metroka are clueless. On January 27, 2020, a month into therapy, I told Metroka it was difficult with Karl’s abuse and flooding of childhood memories to start over – nothing, crickets. She and Ben are CLUELESS about 101 for CPTSD 1) Safety 2) Stability 3) Memory work 4) recovery/restoration. Metroka’s only focus was that I get a job. I swear to God Metroka and Gesing were working WITH AND FOR KARL, enabling him and destroying me ON PURPOSE. I sent clinical notes all over the world and clinicians and people are incredulous as they read them. They said, write a book (I am on page 84 of the book and barely scratched the surface of what people have helped me uncover including 15 APA Ethics Violations, HIPPA violations, and Federal laws broken! I am 17 classes from my masters degree in psychology, an accelerated program with a 3.95 GPA and IQ of 131. I was having memory issues and was so stressed out from being screamed at EVERY.SINGLE.DAY I had to take a medical leave from school. Then the gaslighting of Karl telling me he was not cheating. Add on gaslighting by Gesing and Metroka who were paid to help me, but coddled Karl the toddler abuser destroying the little that was left in me. Karl was cheating with the married principal, Barb Valle, at Jacobs High School (among others) with Steve Budnick his boss covering for both of them, costing taxpayers $181K plus for me to get help to get back on my feet. I am currently homeless, penniless, and received NO HELP for CPTSD. I am living in a place off grid thanks to strangers on Facebook until I can figure out how to start life over at 60 years old with nothing from nothing with severe CPTSD/DID and memory issues with no source of mental health help while internet archives show Karl to be a millionaire. Karl did not even have the decency to leave me just the equity in our home that was perpetually under repairs while he worked on others houses in CUSD300 and received employee of the year while abusing me. Incredulous that Gesing and Metroka helped Karl in his efforts to destroy me. Karl’s abuse was so severe that childhood memories and flashbacks flooded in and Metroka was a dunce to recognize and help me. Gesing added fuel to the fire. As I write this near two years later, help never came from any professional. Karl got away with soul murder. I am dead inside. Read this blog post. This is my story including incompetence of Gesing and Metroka who I believe destroyed me on purpose. https://www.narcissistproblems.com/search/label/Soul%20Murder. I never received the help I needed. I have a diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder from 5 separate sources but never received SUPPORT from my HUSBAND, from mental health “professionals” including Metroka and Gesing. The book is called Dirty Therapists being written by Karen Ulrich. Stay tuned and stay away from Ben Gesing and Deborah Metroka. They could not treat a mental hang nail if their life depended on it. Documentation of Abuse by Karl Ulrich https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZOHndghAPok7FMoarOnEH6TWwhuctK3W?usp=sharing Audio Recording of Abuse by Karl Ulrich https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Zp3AqQGQ41VZ-rC9TnURC87vJG1bvYc4?usp=sharing Dirty Therapists – profit from guardianship of Domestic Violence Victims and DARVO abusers DEBORAH METROKA MA LCPC | Metroka Counseling | license #180066344 1301 Pyott Rd Ste 102, Lake in the Hills IL 60156 847.658.6684 | Deborah@metrokacounseling.org | https://www.metrokacounseling.com/ DR BEN GESING, PsyD | Livingrite Center For Behavioral Health Algonquin IL | license #071008934 2100 N. Huntington Drive, Algonquin, IL 60102 815.317.4213 | ben.gesing@livingrite.org | https://livingrite.org/
Ms. Deborah Metroka practices counseling in Lake In The Hills, IL and In The Hills, IL. Her areas of expertise include infidelity issues, phobias, and separation.
