Individual, Family and Group Therapy
The goal of our therapists are to be the best therapist the patient requires; consequently, our therapists provide a variety of therapy approaches. The following are some of these therapy approaches:
Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT):
Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) is a unique therapy in which a therapy pet is present during your appointment. Dogs are the most popular animals to be used; however, other animals can be used. Trained therapy pets accompanied by the provider can offer structured animal-assisted therapy or help to provide comfort and or decrease anxiety. At our location we have several providers who use a dog in appointments with his or her patients.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT):
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a type of psychotherapy that can be beneficial for a diverse range of clinical conditions. ACT is a form of mindfulness based therapy mixed in different ways with commitment and behavioral-change strategies to teach a patient skills to deal with painful thoughts and feelings effectively so they have less of an impact and influence over him or her. ACT focuses on 3 areas:
- Accept your reactions and be present
- Choose a valued direction
- Take action
The purpose of ACT is to help the patient create a meaningful life while accepting the pain that inevitably goes with it.
Adlerian Therapy:
Adlerian therapy is a brief, psychoeducational approach that is both humanistic and goal oriented. It emphasizes the individual’s strivings for success, connectedness with others, and contributions to society as being hallmarks of mental health. Birth order is considered important in understanding a person’s current personality, yet the therapy is future-minded, rather than retrospective. This approach emphasizes understanding the unique lifestyle of each individual before working toward change.
Adlerian therapy is integrative in that a therapist may call on any number of approaches within the general Adlerian approach. Following are the four stages or steps in this approach:
- Engagement: The therapist and client agree to collaborate on the problem at hand and create an alliance.
- Assessment: The therapist takes the client’s history, including early recollections and birth order influences, more traditional assessment tools may also be used.
- Insight: The therapist helps the client see his or her situation or role differently.
- Reorientation: The therapist gives the client activities to do outside of therapy that will reinforce the insight or create further insight.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT):
“Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) focuses on exploring relationships among a person's thoughts, feelings and behaviors. During CBT a therapist will actively work with a person to uncover unhealthy patterns of thought and how they may be causing self-destructive behaviors and beliefs.
By addressing these patterns, the person and therapist can work together to develop constructive ways of thinking that will produce healthier behaviors and beliefs. For instance, CBT can help someone replace thoughts that lead to low self-esteem ("I can't do anything right") with positive expectations ("I can do this most of the time, based on my prior experiences").
The core principles of CBT are identifying negative or false beliefs and testing or restructuring them. Oftentimes someone being treated with CBT will have homework in between sessions where they practice replacing negative thoughts with more realistic thoughts based on prior experiences or record their negative thoughts in a journal”.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR):
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy is a type of psychotherapy approach proven to be effective for the treatment of trauma although EMDR has also been reported helpful in the treatment of other conditions. Successful EMDR therapy is meant to help a patient to lessen or no longer relive the images, sounds and feelings of a traumatic event when brought to mind by replacing negative emotional reactions to difficult memories with less-charged or positive reactions and/or beliefs. During EMDR therapy, an individual stimulates the brain with back and forth eye movements (or specific sequences of tapping or musical tones). Simultaneously, the individual stimulates memories by recalling a traumatic event.
Individual, Family and Group Therapy:
The goal of our therapists is to meet the individual needs of each client. In meeting these needs, the following therapeutic approaches are implemented:
- Adlerian Therapy
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Mindfulness
- EMDR
For more information about an individual therapist’s approach, please see his/her profile.
Mindfulness:
Mindfulness is a cognitive psychotherapy designed to help patients who suffer from depression, anxiety and stress. It combines the ideas of cognitive therapy with mindfulness techniques like meditation, stretching and breathing exercises to help break through the negative thought patterns which are present with depression and reduce anxiety and stress.
Mindfulness helps a patient learn how to focus on the present instead of the past or the future and to let go of negative thoughts that led to his or her depression. It is believed if one can have a greater awareness of his or her body, they will be better able to identify the signs of oncoming depression and prevent the episode from occurring along with helping manage a wide range of physical conditions and therefore help with general wellbeing of the patient.
Questions or want to schedule a consultation about our Therapy options?
If you have any questions about our therapy approaches or want to schedule a consultation, please fill out the form or click the button below.
