Therapy Services
Read through the different types of therapies our clinicians are trained in.
Targeted Therapies
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a type of psychotherapy that helps individuals develop psychological flexibility by accepting their thoughts and feelings while committing to actions aligned with their values. It emphasizes mindfulness, acceptance, and values-based action to address various mental health concerns.
ACT focuses on helping individuals accept their thoughts and feelings rather than fighting or feeling guilty for them. It emphasizes commitment to personal values and acting in line with those values.
ACT is effective for a wide range of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, and chronic illnesses.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a structured, goal-oriented type of psychotherapy that helps individuals identify and change negative thought patterns and behaviors. It operates on the principle that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are interconnected, and altering negative thoughts can lead to changes in emotions and actions.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focuses on changing automatic negative thoughts that can contribute to and worsen emotional difficulties, depression and anxiety. These spontaneous negative thoughts have a detrimental influence on mood. Through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, these thoughts are identified and replaced with more objective, realistic thoughts. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy teaches you strategies to overcome these thoughts including journaling, role-playing, relaxation techniques, and mental distractions.
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CBT also includes the following techniques:
Cognitive Restructuring: Identifying and challenging irrational or harmful thoughts.
Behavioral Activation: Engaging in activities that promote pleasure or a sense of accomplishment.
Exposure Therapy: Gradually facing fears in a controlled manner to reduce anxiety.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Dialectical Behavior Therapy is a specialized form of CBT that teaches skills-based concepts for everyday life. Its main goals are to teach people how to live in the moment, develop healthy ways to cope with stress, regulate emotions and improve their relationships with others.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy was originally intended to treat borderline personality disorder (BPD), but it has been adapted to treat other mental health conditions like anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and destructive behaviors such as self-harm or eating disorders. Traditional DBT combines individual therapy with group skills training sessions. Dialectical Behavior Therapy covers four main areas including mindfulness, developing emotional regulation, improving distress tolerance and lastly interpersonal effectiveness.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a well-known humanistic approach to psychotherapy formulated in the 1980’s and developed in tandem with science of adult attachment, a profound developmental theory of personality and intimate relationships. This science has expanded our understanding of individual dysfunction and health as well as the nature of love relationships and family bonds. Attachment views human beings as innately relationship, social and wired for intimate bonding with others. The EFT model prioritizes emotion and emotional regulation as the key organizing agents in individual experiences and key relationship interactions.
EFT is best known as a cutting edge, tested and proven couple intervention but it is also used to address individual depression, anxiety and PTSD. This model operationalizes the principles of attachment science using non-pathologizing experiential and relationship systems techniques to focus on and change core organizational factors in both the self and key relationships.
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR)
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy is a form of psychotherapy that views the mind as being composed of different parts, or sub-personalities, that each have their own unique roles and perspectives. The core principle is that underlying these parts lies a person's core "Self," which is a source of innate wisdom, compassion, and healing. IFS therapy aims to help individuals access their Self and facilitate the healing of their internal parts, promoting inner harmony and balance.
IFS was developed by psychologist Richard Schwartz. In his work as a family therapist, Schwartz began to observe patterns in how people described their inner lives: “What I heard repeatedly were descriptions of what they often called their "parts"—the conflicted subpersonalities that resided within them,” Schwartz says. He began to conceive of the mind as a family, and the parts as family members interacting with one another. Exploring how these components functioned with one another was the foundation for IFS and the idea of the core Self.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy integrates the ideas of cognitive therapy with meditative practices and attitudes based on the cultivation of mindfulness. The heart of this work lies in becoming acquainted with the modes of mind that often characterize mood disorders while simultaneously learning to develop a new relationship with them. It teaches individuals to be present in the moment and to observe their thoughts and feelings without judgment.
MBCT is particularly effective for preventing the relapse of depression and for treating anxiety. By fostering a mindful approach to thoughts and feelings, individuals learn to break the cycle of negative thinking that often leads to emotional distress. MBCT was developed by Zindel Segal, Mark Williams and John Teasdale, based on Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program.
Psychotherapy (Talk Therapy)
Psychotherapy, commonly known as talk therapy, involves discussing mental health issues with a trained therapist. The primary goal is to understand the underlying causes of distress and develop coping strategies to manage them effectively.
There are two common approaches to psychotherapy:
Psychodynamic Therapy: This approach focuses on uncovering how past experiences, particularly from childhood, influence current behaviors and thoughts. By bringing unconscious patterns to light, individuals can gain insights and resolve internal conflicts.
Interpersonal Therapy: A short-term therapy that targets improving interpersonal relationships and communication skills. It is particularly effective for treating depression and anxiety that stem from relationship issues.
Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)
As the name suggests, SFBT is future-focused, goal-directed, and focuses on solutions, rather than on the problems that brought patients to seek therapy. Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is short-term goal-focused evidence based therapeutic approach which helps patients change by constructing solutions rather than dwelling on problems. In the most basic sense, SFBT is a hope friendly, positive emotion eliciting, future-oriented, achieving, and sustaining desired behavioral change.
Solution-Focused practitioners develop solutions by first generating a detailed description of how the patients’ life will be different when the problem is gone, or their situation improved to a degree satisfactory to the patient. Therapist and patient then carefully search through the patients’ life experience and behavioral repertoire to discover the necessary resources needed to co-construct a practical and sustainable solution that the client can readily implement.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing is a psychotherapy approach that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are a result of disturbing life experiences. This process can reduce the vividness and emotion associated with trauma memories.
Repeated studies show that by using EMDR therapy people can experience quicker benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference. The brain's ability to process can become blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma by incorporating bilateral stimulation of the brain along with cognitive restructuring using more adaptive cognitive concepts than the negative ones that the mind holds onto.