Sondra Wilkinson

My name is Sondra Wilkinson and I’ve been a Licensed Professional Counselor for nearly 20 years in Arizona and here in Knoxville, Tennessee. While in Arizona I also maintained a license as a substance abuse counselor working with a variety of alcohol, various drug and other forms of addiction. Initially I began focusing on addiction because I believed that substance abuse often is a misguided coping mechanism used to deal with difficult situations or past experiences. During that time, I recognized that while I understood why people chose to cope with their difficulties with substances, I needed to help them figure out why they needed to cope to begin with. This changed the path and focus of my journey into recognizing that false beliefs people have about themselves, often result in not only substance abuse, but many other negative emotional experiences such as anxiety and depression. That those beliefs often had their genesis in childhood, or traumatic experiences we’ve had in life. If I could help people to see how these negative beliefs encouraged them to find unhealthy coping mechanism, I could help them to change the false belief they had about themselves and develop more healthy ways of living and seeing themselves. My focus of practice now is helping people to see the internalized negative beliefs about themselves, change those beliefs which originated in life traumas, and grow and heal into the person they aspire to be.