Dr. Athena Dacanay is a Licensed Psychologist providing psychological treatment for child, and family concerns. She received her Doctoral degree in Educational Psychology with a specialization in School Psychology from Ball State University in Muncie, IN. She completed her pre-doctoral internship at the Integrated Behavioral Health Consortium of Indiana and post-doctoral internship at Psychology Specialists, Champaign, IL.

Dr. Dacanay has experience in administering pre-surgical assessments for bariatric surgery and spinal cord stimulator procedure, psychoeducational assessments, psychological assessments and conducting therapy with individuals, families, and groups in outpatient and school-based settings. Additionally, she has worked with a wide variety of social, emotional, behavioral, and psychological health issues and diagnoses, including neurodevelopmental, anxiety, depressive, personality, and impulse-control disorders. She uses a combination of cognitive behavioral, acceptance-based, and strengths-based strategies as her approach to treatment. She has completed Level 3 training of the Gottman Method which is used for couples counseling in 2019 and intensive training from the International OCD Foundation Behavior Therapy Training Institute (BTTI) in 2020.

Dr. Dacanay’s primary areas of professional interest include working with individuals and families who are adjusting to life changes (such as loss, illness, or divorce), struggling to cope with anxiety and depression, needing behavioral planning, or seeking couples/ family therapy. She utilizes play therapy to help young children express their thoughts and feelings about what is troubling them. She promotes understanding and collaboration among family members in order to solve the problems of one or more individuals, especially with children and adolescents. She believes past and current social and cultural forces shape one’s values, thoughts, and expectations about how the world works. The focus of treatment is learning to identify and change debilitating thought patterns, and if there is a struggle in committing to change, to consistently choose to act effectively in the presence of difficult life events.