COUNSELING

Counseling is a process through which clients work one-on-one with a trained therapist in a safe, caring, and comfortable environment. A client and therapist may work together for as few as five or six sessions or as long as several years, depending on the client’s unique needs and persona goals for therapy. If indicated, family can also be involved in sessions, especially for our child and adolescent clients to enhance parent-child relationships. Counseling appointments typically last 45 to 60 minutes

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy – A short-term, problem-focused form of behavioral treatment that helps people see the relationship between beliefs, thoughts, and feelings, and subsequent behavior patterns and actions. Through this type of treatment, people discover that it is their perception of events, rather than the events themselves that determines how he or she will feel and act. Cognitive behavioral therapists believe that by adjusting our thoughts, we can directly influence our emotions and behavior. Research shows this type of therapy is very successful in reducing the impact of clients’ symptoms

Trauma Therapy – Trauma can leave a person struggling with upsetting emotions, memories, behaviors and anxiety that won’t go away. Unresolved trauma can negatively impact a person’s moods, thoughts, and behaviors. Learning about the stages of healing can be distressing, motivating, upsetting, or uplifting. Regardless of which emotion is expressed, a person’s reaction is not wrong. While there are numerous therapy approaches, the purpose of trauma-sensitive therapy is to integrate the traumatic event into a person’s life, not subtract it. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) can help one gain insight and learn how to reprocess the trauma. This allows for relief from symptoms and the ability to move forward by learning how to manage mood, thoughts and behaviors more effectively. In order to heal from psychological and emotional trauma, a person will need to reprocess the unpleasant feelings and memories they have long avoided, learn to regulate strong emotions, develop healthier response skills and rebuild the ability to trust other people.

Art Therapy – Art therapy, facilitated by a professionally trained art therapist, utilizes art as a creative process to engage the mind, body and spirit. Art allows some individuals whom may struggle with communication to move beyond words and express themselves through the process of art. Trusting the process by utilizing various art mediums allows the individual to gain insight and awareness, empowering the individual. Art therapy has been effective for increasing self-esteem, identifying and verbalizing thoughts and feelings, developing healthy boundaries, increasing positive communication within family systems, and developing emotional, creative and spiritual growth.

Grief Therapy – Grief counseling is a form of psychotherapy that aims to help people cope with grief and mourning following the death of loved ones, or to cope with major life changes that trigger feelings of grief such as divorce or job loss. Often people feel disorganized, tired, have trouble concentrating, sleep poorly and have vivid dreams, and they may experience change in appetite. Grief counseling helps the individual recognize normal aspects of the grieving or mourning process, cope with the pain associated with the loss, feel supported through the anxiety surrounding life changes that may follow the loss, and develop strategies for seeking support and self-care.