WHAT IS THERAPY?

Therapy is a collaborative, trusting, confidential relationship with a licensed psychologist or mental health professional, focused on helping a person cope with the stress of daily life; the impact of trauma, medical illness or loss; and specific mental disorders, like depression or anxiety.  Therapy focuses on helping a person manage and control symptoms and improve their well-being and functioning.  Therapy can be short-term, dealing with immediate issues, or long-term, dealing with longstanding and complex issues.

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Research has consistently shown that talk therapy is beneficial to symptom relief and improved functioning for most people.

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Cognitive Behavior Therapy, commonly referred to as CBT, is used to help people identify and change thinking and behavior patterns that have been ineffective, replacing them with more accurate thoughts and more effective behaviors. Individuals will recognize the interaction between their thinking, emotions and behaviors and work on developing personalized coping strategies to manage emotional distress. CBT emphasizes what is going on in the person's current life, rather than what has led up to their difficulties.

 

Dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, is a structured treatment focused on teaching new skills to help people change unhealthy or disruptive behavior. It involves individual therapy and skills training.  DBT works to help people integrate extreme positions, to assess situations and to manage problematic target behaviors that are relevant to a client's goals.  Skills training in DBT focuses on building mindfulness and teaching coping skills to manage stress, to improve interpersonal relationships, and to help an individual to identify, label, and regulate their emotions.