Modalities

This modality is informed by the philosophy of existential thought and explores themes of human existence such as freedom, responsibility, mortality, choice, and meaning. Some of the ways Existential Therapy can help a person live a better life are: increased self-awareness, identifying meaning and purpose, exploring the freedom to make better choices, increasing your desire and implementing responsibility to yourself, learning how to face uncertainty and the anxiety of our mortality and of life in general, and cultivating authenticity and the ability to live according to our true selves. Through the process of existential psychotherapy, a person can develop greater resilience, flexibility, and wisdom which leads to a richer and more vibrant life.

This modality helps people accept the difficulties that come with life and commit to making meaningful changes that align with their values. ACT strongly integrates mindfulness by noticing, and objectively separating from problems, painful emotions, and the interactions with others. Through this process an individual can accept the reality of negative experiences without trying to avoid or suppress them. Instead of struggling with or trying to eliminate these experiences, people are encouraged to accept them as they are. With this stance of acceptance, one then follows their values toward living a more fulfilling life. This method involves setting value-based goals and taking small, manageable steps in their work toward a more fulfilling life.

This modality creates space and, in turn, freedom, from the thoughts that are linked to behaviors. Everyone has thoughts that do not line up with reality but sometimes these thoughts create problems. CBT helps one stop the negative self-talk, and other over-simplistic beliefs such as something/someone is “all good” or “all bad”, and the notion that if things go wrong, they will go terribly wrong. With practice, CBT methods can teach a person to confront overly negative and inaccurate thoughts about themself, others, and life in general and learn to view things more realistically. CBT tools pair well with more in depth therapy methods to address daily anxieties and maladaptive thoughts.

A structured program of psychotherapy with a strong educational component designed to provide skills for managing intense emotions and negotiating social relationships. The “dialectic” in Dialectical Behavior Therapy is an acknowledgment that real life is complex, and health is not a static thing but an ongoing process hammered out through a continuous Socratic dialogue with the self and others. It is continually aimed at balancing opposing forces and investigating the truth of powerful negative emotions. DBT acknowledges the need for change in a context of acceptance of situations and recognizes the constant flux of feelings—many of them contradictory—without having to get caught up in them. Therapists help patients understand and accept that thought is an inherently messy process. DBT is itself an interplay of science and practice.

An in-depth form of talk therapy based on the theories and principles of psychoanalysis. In effect, talking about problems in a therapeutic setting can be extremely valuable for the individual. Through the patient/therapist relationship, psychodynamic therapy helps the patient understand their patterns of relating to others. In this close collaboration, the unconscious maladaptive patterns that are burdening the patient are brought to light so that the patient can understand what they are really dealing with and with this clarity, begin to work through the origins of these issues and restructure their understanding of themselves, and develop more healthy patterns of relating to themselves, others and the world.

This modality defines the development process between the psyche of the client and how the individual relates to their environment. The theory itself explains that individuals will create current relationships depending on the experiences they had as a child with parents, siblings, or guardians.

A therapy that recognizes and emphasizes the understanding of how a traumatic experience impacts a person's mental, behavioral, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. This type of therapy is rooted in understanding the connection between the person's peasant-day emotional and behavioral responses and “triggers”—conscious or unconscious traumatic experience and memory. The purpose of trauma-focused therapy is to offer skills and strategies to assist a person in better understanding, coping with, and processing the emotions and memories tied to traumatic experiences, with the end goal of enabling a person to create a healthier and more adaptive meaning of the experience that took place in their lives. Trauma therapy draws on significant neuroscientific, behavioral, and psychological research.