Therapies and Techniques

  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

    CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy works on the understanding that thoughts and behaviors have a very tight relationship to one another. What this means is that what we think can influence what we do and what we do can influence how we think. CBT uses this understanding to work through distorted thought processes and establish behaviors that lead to the outcomes a person wants.

  • Narrative Therapy

    Narrative therapy works on the understanding that we are all the heroes of our own stories and that our own stories can often feel overridden by others. In the moments that feel so overwhelming that it seems like there is nothing a person can do, it is easy to forget that we have the power to change our circumstances. The techniques of narrative therapy are designed to help reorient a person's perspective to center control around themself, rather than the world around them.

  • Motivational Interviewing

    Motivational interviewing is often seen in addiction counseling, and works off the idea that our actions are always informed by a desire. The idea is to work on the understanding of what motivates us, either for good or bad, to find better motivations to change our behaviors. In the therapy room, you would work with the therapist to understand the aspect that negative behaviors fill and why they continue in order to begin replacing them with more beneficial behaviors.

  • Gestalt Techniques

    One of the notable techniques I use from Gestalt therapy is the empty chair. Empty chair technique is fundamentally working through the conversations we play out in our minds in real time to an empty chair in the therapy room. This technique is useful for playing out the possibilities before committing to do something.

Specialties

  • Addiction

    Addiction comes in many forms whether that is alcohol, prescriptions, gambling, social media or porn. They all have one thing in common: they all serve a function to the person that gets into them. They could be used to numb physical or emotional pain, fill a loss of connection, or the only thrill in life that keeps you going. These avenues tend to be rather quick to relieve the distress in a person's life. The human brain is wired to solve distress in the fastest way possible creating the negative feedback loop we call addiction. The way through addiction is understanding what it serves and how to substitute it with something that works better in the long term.

  • Suicidal Ideation

    Suicidal ideation is often talked about as the lowest point a person can get to where they have given up all hope and resigned themself to their suffering. Their circumstances have gotten them to a point of feeling so overwhelmed that their own brain begins to rationalize that nonexistence is a feasible solution to resolving their internal stress. For most individuals in these circumstances, their efforts to get through this are viewed as "cries for help" as if they are looking for someone else to save them. Instead, this seems to be the efforts of someone who is not ready to give up the fight and is using anything and everything they can to keep moving forward. In therapy, you can find some rest from the fight and get the tools you need to keep the fight and gain the ground you need to thrive.

  • Grief is a natural part of life given that loss is inevitable, but that does not stop the process from being difficult. The process of grief is generally understood to come in 5 stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. While this pr

    Grief

    Grief is a natural part of life given that loss is inevitable, but that does not stop the process from being difficult. The process of grief is generally understood to come in 5 stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. While this process looks rather linear, everyone handles it differently so the process always looks different for each individual person. Loss of a significant relationship, terminal illnesses, or sudden deaths can, and often do, put a strain on the process making it difficult for some people to finish the process, and that is where therapy comes in. The goal of grief therapy is to understand the impact of the loss and how to best incorporate a new dynamic into your life.

  • Trauma

    Trauma is an event or series of events that involve death or serious injury to yourself or someone else. This can often result in repeated experiences of the event in distressing ways such as: nightmares, flashbacks, or prolonged distress from something that reminds you of what happened. What makes trauma difficult to work through alone is that a person's brain disconnects their memory from their conscious(often referred to as blacking out) during the event in a desire to protect itself. Therapy for trauma is designed to create an environment where the brain can relay the events that happened in a way that gives them the appropriate context for the present moment.