Dawn Institute

"I found her to be unprofessional. She talked about her personal life a lot, which counselors are not supposed to do. She never seemed fully present during my appointments, either. She often didn’t remember information I had discussed with her and after six months, she still didn’t know details about why I was even there. She was disorganized and rarely followed through. She lost paperwork in my file. And she was almost always late for my appointments, by 10 minutes or more. She also overstepped boundaries by sending me an email requesting information about tenet advocacy (something I had never even heard of), that she wanted to provide to another client. She seemed knowledgeable at first, but then she gave me unsolicited medical advice about serotonin that was not only outside the scope of her practice, since she’s not a medical doctor, but the advice she gave me was incorrect. She also kept recommending that I get a service dog, even though I told her repeatedly that I’m allergic. During one session, she actually pulled out a deck of playing cards and said we would take a “break from therapy”, a break that she billed for. She also made several disrespectful comments toward me because I wasn’t healing according to her timetable, and when I talked to her about it, I felt like she was trying to gaslight me. When I brought that to her attention, her response was that counseling wouldn’t work unless I agreed to take antidepressants (more gaslighting), which I declined. Counseling with my former therapist was effective without medication. My trauma symptoms worsened while in Crystal’s care, and improved when I stopped going to her. Based on my experience, I would not recommend her to anyone, especially survivors of trauma or abuse. Also, it looks like some of her reviews were written to manipulate her ratings, including the one written by her colleague."

"Crystal is an incredible therapist who has dedicated her time and energy into becoming the best in her field. Crystal's dedication to building a safe and supportive therapy environment starts with the detail in constructing her new therapy offices and continues into each resources/support she provides in the therapeutic relationship. Dawn Institute is an incredible place to begin your journey towards resolving trauma."

"Crystal is an incredible therapist that we have worked with for over 5 years. Her knowledge, help and techniques have helped us raise our bio kids and adopted kids with understanding and taught us how to keep a connection with them, as well as helped us to understand the healing that needed to take place in us. Everything we have learned from her is easy to understand and implement in our everyday life. She has helped us to see the need behind every action which has helped our family and children get through the darkest of moments. We couldn't be more grateful to have such a wonderful person and resource in our lives."

"Crystal is truly amazing. We worked with her for help with our daughter who had extreme trauma from her biological parents and being in foster care. Crystal is an expert in trauma. She is intentional, detailed, and diverse in her methods. She is excellent at explaining things in a way I can understand and she has empowered me to be the parent I need to be for my daughter. As long as you are willing to do the work she will be a great fit!!!"

"Crystal is incredible. Very respectful of boundaries, safe to be with. The work she and I have done and are still doing is life transforming. She specializes in trauma and is on the cutting edge of this specialized field. This is way more than talk therapy and has produced measurable results in my life."