Therapeutic Approaches & Specialties
Therapeutic Approaches
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy addresses dysfunctional emotions, maladaptive behaviors and cognitive processes, and contents through several goal-oriented, explicit, systematic procedures.
- Narrative Therapy examines the stories that you tell yourself about your own life experiences – your beliefs, your values, your assumptions, your dreams, and your intentions – and the impact those stories have on your life.
- Solutions-focused and strength-based therapies help you recognize and identify skills, abilities, beliefs, and social networks that support you in being more of who you want to be.
- Person-Centered Therapy is based on the view that everyone has the capacity and desire for personal growth and change, given the right conditions. You’ll be encouraged to bring your own issues to the session – the counseling is led by you and not directed by the counselor.
- Psychodynamic Therapy attempts to identify patterns in emotions, thoughts, and beliefs in order to help clients gain insight into themselves.
Depression
Depression can range from times of sadness to lingering and chronic depths of despair. If left untreated, depression can interfere significantly with day-to-day living. If some of the symptoms listed below are affecting you for more than a few weeks, you may benefit from speaking to a therapist:
- fatigue
- low energy
- overwhelming grief and/or sadness
- poor concentration
- difficulty making decisions
- low self-esteem
- feeling worthless, hopeless, or helpless
- disturbed sleeping patterns
- disturbed eating patterns
- anxiety
- avoidance
- loss of interest in activities previously enjoyed
At District Counseling, we provide a safe place to talk, explore and understand contributing factors to depression while helping to develop coping strategies.
Grief
Grief is a difficult, complicated, and emotional response to loss. Grief is a personal experience that may also be expressed outwardly. For some, it may take a long time to come to terms with a loss. Physical and emotional pain can be profound and might occur immediately, or happen much later, possibly even as a response to an unrelated situation.
District Counseling provides grief counseling to enable clients to understand their grief and help them cope with feelings of loss. If needed, group therapy surrounding grief is encouraged as an additional level of support.
Anxiety
Anxiety is a normal response to stress which may arise due to pressures at home, work, school, or in any number of relationships. While it is common to feel anxious at times, when anxiety becomes excessive and interferes with work, family life, and one’s happiness, it is time to get help.
Anxiety can be accompanied by physical symptoms such as heart palpitations or chest pains, fatigue, nausea, shortness of breath, stomach or headaches, and poor sleep. Emotional symptoms may include feelings of apprehension or dread, difficulty concentrating, feelings of irritability, restlessness, and constantly watching for signs of danger.
Panic attacks are episodes of extreme anxiety lasting from 1 or 2 minutes up to 20 minutes. Common symptoms of a panic attack include rapid heartbeat, perspiration, dizziness, trembling, uncontrollable fear, and hyperventilation.
Relationship Issues
Emotionally fulfilling relationships are central to mental and physical health however; creating and maintaining a healthy relationship can be a challenge with all of today’s life stressors. Communication styles that individuals learned while growing up may influence a couple’s relationship.
At District Counseling, we will work with the couple together and separately to help them resolve conflict, unhappiness, or overcome dissatisfaction in the relationship.
Trauma
We specialize in treating complex and straightforward posttraumatic stress (PTSD), which can help adult survivors heal from the effects of trauma. Trauma treatment can be helpful if you have experienced extreme stress that has felt overwhelming and made it difficult to cope. Some examples include childhood abuse and neglect, rape, sexual assault, traumatic loss, interpersonal violence, betrayal, reproductive trauma, crime, accidents, and natural disasters.
Our work will generally begin focusing on establishing safety and stabilization of symptoms through skill-building and self-care. We will likely spend the most time in this phase and return to it repeatedly throughout treatment. We will do this work slowly, at a pace that feels safe and tolerable to you.