Dr. Duval has over thirty years of experience treating depression and anxiety. Her approach views difficult emotions not as problems to be erased, but as signals worth understanding — combining depth-oriented exploration with concrete, evidence-based methods like CBT when they serve the work.

Depression is often a signal, not just a symptom

When ordinary sadness deepens into something more pervasive — a lingering sense that nothing is right, that lightness and optimism may never return — the first question is what it's actually rooted in. Is it largely biological, where medication may help? Or is it more situational, tied to unresolved heartaches and losses that ask to be understood and mourned rather than medicated away?

Dr. Duval doesn't treat strong emotions as malfunctions to be silenced. She treats them first as possible signals that point toward what needs to change in the present, as well as indications of old wounds that deserve a fuller reckoning. That understanding shapes how the work proceeds.

Understanding anxiety — and working through it

Anxiety is one of our most important emotions. It's the mind's equivalent of physical pain: just as we pull a hand from a flame, anxiety tells us to avoid what threatens our wellbeing. We are built to survive — to stay alive and keep the people we love alive — so it makes sense to steer away from danger.

But the trouble is that genuinely living often means moving toward the unknown or the risky. Learning to balance those two pulls is the heart of the work.

Dr. Duval works with anxiety on two levels at once. She explores the deeper layers — the evolutionary and existential roots of fear, including our awareness of our own mortality. And she draws on the concrete tools of CBT, which challenge beliefs that have been held too tightly or have become maladaptive, and which build practical scripts for courage: for walking up to and through the fear, so you can cross the bridge, interview for the new job, or ask someone out on a date.

What progress actually looks like

Progress isn't measured by the absence of depression or anxiety. It's measured by the capacity to tolerate and move through difficulty.

It's accepting the invitation from a friend even when staying home feels easier. It's boarding the airplane instead of driving twelve hours to avoid the panic. Each time you do, two things happen: the restricting emotion doesn't get to win in the moment, and the mood disruption itself begins to loosen, because you've given yourself a corrective experience and new evidence that you can navigate the world successfully.