About Ocean Counseling | Meet CP Handler, MSW, LISW-S

CP Handler, LCSW, LISW-S

CP is a client-centered, humanistic therapist who believes that it’s the human within the therapist that creates the space for recovery and self-actualization. CP’s holistic approach to treatment was born out of a deep appreciation for the mind-body connection. After working in vastly different populations, CP discovered early in her career that trauma and MH struggles do not discriminate. CP holds a constant sense of awe for the human spirit and its unwavering fight to thrive amidst adversity.

In 2019, after years of working as a therapist, clinical supervisor, consultant and trainer, CP created Resonant Therapies as she continued to meet the needs of individuals and communities. Resonant Therapies thrived for 4 years, while the world went through COVID and CP joined the great Sunshine State migration. In 2023, CP transitioned Resonant Therapies to Ocean Counseling as she set up her Florida-based Private Practice. CP offers training and consultation internationally and is licensed to provide therapy services in FL, MI and OH.

In addition to her Private Practice, CP currently works for the South Florida jail system as a crisis interventionist with the suicidal, homicidal and psychotic inmates. In her non-work time, you can usually find CP boxing, watching the beautiful Miami sunrises and sunsets, or writing poetry about the dichotomies of life and opportunities for betterment and change.

Core Beliefs

The client is their own best expert. Your “bad habits” or current struggles once served the purpose of self-preservation and have allowed you to make it to where you are today.
People do not “self-sabotage.” They self-protect.
Each client has their own unique life with their own individualized lived experiences. Just as there is no “one size fits all” treatment for medicine, there is no “once size fits all” treatment for mental health.
The therapeutic relationship is at the core of any treatment and long-lasting change.
We are products of genetics, environment, and prior relationships. Learning about how our history has impacted us is a powerful gateway for awareness and change.
Addiction is ritualized comfort-seeking resulting from unresolved trauma.
Trauma is the real gateway drug.
The brain and body are designed to heal themselves when the conditions are right. The job of a
therapist is to provide those conditions for organic recovery to occur.
Humans are social creatures with a core need for social interaction and meaningful relationships. This basic human need will often override reason and bring us back to unhealthy relationships.
Neuroplasticity shows that our brain never stops creating new connections and developing new patterns. As we learn and practice new thought patterns and skills, we are literally rewiring our brain’s functioning.
We will never be who we were, but with the right resources, we can continue to become more beautiful, whole and actualized selves.
The human capacity for resilience and triumph allows us to prevail through our darkest and most isolating moments.

Favorite Quotes

A compilation of my favorite quotes. Click tabs to expand.

Healing and Growth

If you don’t heal what hurt you, you will bleed all over those who didn’t cut you.
– Unknown
If you listen to your mental health when it whispers, you won’t have to hear it scream.
– Dr. Christina Iglesia
What triggers you also reveals what you need to heal.
– Unknown

Human Strength and Resilience

You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.
– Bob Marley
She didn’t know it couldn’t be done so she went ahead and did it.
– Mary S. Almanac
Ships don’t sink because of the water around them; ships sink because of the water that gets in them. Don’t let what’s happening around you get inside you and weigh you down.
– Unknown

Trauma

Healing trauma is like doing brain surgery on yourself but instead of being put to sleep, you are waking up.
– Michael Anthony (Think Unbroken)
A history of trauma can give you a high tolerance for emotional pain. Just because you can take it, doesn’t mean you have to.
– Dr. Thema Bryant-Davis
Unhealed trauma overrides willpower.
– Unknown

Perspective and Choice

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.
– Carl Rogers
If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.
– Maya Angelou
There is nothing more freeing than letting go of what could have been and embracing what is.
– CP Handler

Addiction

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.
– Carl Jung
The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.
– Johann Hari
Addiction is not the problem. Addiction is the solution.
-Unknown

Mistakes

Mishaps are like knives that either serve or cut us as we grasp them by the blade or handle.
– James Russell Lowell
The only remedy for regret is a lesson learned.
– CP Handler
I never lose. I either win or learn.
– Nelson Mandela

Relationships

Know all the theories, master all the techniques, but as you touch a human soul be just another human soul.– Carl Jung
In my early professional years, I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?
– Carl Rogers
The parent-child connection is the most powerful mental health intervention known to humanity.
– Bessel Van Der Kolk

Responsibility

There are primary choices in life: To accept conditions as they exist or accept the responsibility for changing them.
– Denis Waitley
Your trauma isn’t your fault. Healing from it is your responsibility.
– Unknown
Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar.
– Bradley Miller

Coffee

I don’t know what I would do without coffee, but I’m guessing 25 to life.
Lord give me coffee to make the change I can and please give me wine to accept the things I can’t.
Coffee helps me maintain my “never killed anyone” streak.

Consciousness

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. – Carl Jung
Do not ignore your intuition. Its simply data processed too fast for your conscious mind to comprehend. – Arthur Conan Dolye (Sherlock Holmes)
Self-sabotage is when your conscious mind is ready for change that your subconscious mind may not be. – Unknown