Methods of Therapy
"The good life is a process, not a state of being.
It is a direction, not a destination."
-Carl Rogers
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) focuses on teaching individuals skills to help them live their best and most productive lives.
DBT skills that are taught in a group consist of four modules: mindfulness, which improves an individual's ability to accept and be present in the current moment, distress tolerance, which helps to increase a person's tolerance of negative emotions, emotion regulation, which focuses on strategies to manage and change intense emotions that are causing problems in a person's life, and interpersonal effectiveness, which teaches the individual to communicate with others in a way that is assertive, maintains self-respect, and strengthens relationships.
In addition to individual therapy sessions and the client’s participation in a DBT skills group, phone sessions and homework assignments focus on daily effective use of skills and examine obstacles interfering with effective skill acquisition.
Mindfulness
Cultivating mindfulness is an act of courage which lets you heal, allowing your experience be the teacher. Mindfulness helps you listen to and relate to your thoughts and feelings without holding on to them or trying to escape from a problem.
If your efforts to resolve a conflict are not working and you have no idea how to move forward, mindfulness helps you establish a different relationship with problematic thoughts and emotional experiences in order to move forward.
Instead of encouraging avoidance and escaping from unwanted and persistent thoughts or emotions, mindfulness reaches beyond conditioned reactions and invites self-acceptance, self-understanding, and decreased stress in to our lives as we learn to compassionately notice our feelings without getting caught up in them.
With this clarity, the client is able to follow through on a different course of action to change their life for the better.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based therapy that focuses on modifying dysfunctional emotions, behaviors, and thoughts by questioning negative or irrational beliefs. CBT aims to identify harmful thoughts, assess whether they are an accurate depiction of reality, and, if they are not, employ strategies to challenge and overcome them.
CBT helps you identify specific negative thought patterns and behavioral responses to challenging or stressful situations. Treatment involves identifying and changing inaccurate or distorted thinking patterns, developing more balanced and constructive ways to respond to stressors in order to minimize or eliminate the troubling behavior.