Like to walk and talk? Prefer a more traditional approach? Let's discover what works for you
CBT Approach: Cognitive and Behavioral Therapy
CBT stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and it's usually a short term type of therapy that does not examine your past. In CBT sessions, you’ll work on identifying patterns and learning about it's negative impact on you. CBT is about Thoughts-Feelings/ Emotions and Behavior. With guidance, you’ll explore ways to notice this triangle in your life and replace negative thought patterns or behaviors with more helpful ones. Like behavioral therapy, CBT goal is to focus on addressing existing symptoms and making changes. It is evidence based with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, PTSD, and addictions.
ACT Approach: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
ACT is considered a new wave of therapy and it uses mindfulness strategies and creates awareness. It examines values and begs you to the ask the question, how can I still have a meaningful life facing whatever obstacle I have at the moment. ACT helps you accept the difficulties that come with life. ACT still addresses negative thoughts and feelings but goes into a deeper value explorations. ACT also addresses your commitment to making changes, avoidant behaviors and what to do about it when you can't stick to your goals. ACT uses a lot of metaphors and it is very activity based approach. ACT has been used with marital distress, losing a job, feeling stuck, feelings of low self esteem and self worth.
DBT Approach: Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Dr. Marsha Linehan created DBT and it uses four core principles: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation and interpersonal skills. In DBT, the goal is not to judge yourself so harshly and accepting difficult situations while being mindful of your emotions. A lot of the work in DBT is about learning to recognize when an emotion is unproductive. Learning to implement scales to recognize the intensity of an undesired emotion and how to replace it with another more useful one. Once we work on the emotion regulation, we can make the connection between emotions and our own interpersonal skills. It has been used with depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorders and clients who exhibit chronic NSSI ( non suicidal self injurious behaviors).
Coaching/Executive Functioning
Some of us struggle with identifying our own natural strengths and there is often a struggle with mental, emotional and behavioral wellbeing. Coaching is an intense focused approach to look at a desired goal and learn to capitalize on your natural strengths to achieve them. This focus will work on your flexible thinking, time management, planning and organization.
- There is no mention in the DSM 5 of Executive Functioning Disorder. We all have some issues wih executive functioning and finishing tasks
- Some of us need a little more coaching with managing tasks, reflecting on our progress and being held accountable.
- Thorough examination of routines, habits and behaviors that can get in the way of creating action steps to accomplish goals
Forest Therapy/ Mindfulness/Walk and Talk
Forest therapy has been buzzing in the last couple of years due to the health benefits. There are reports that forest therapy reduces cortisol, a stress hormone. Forest therapy forces you to listen to sounds, hear nature, feel the wind. Forest therapy is a lot like mindfulness, forcing you to be present in this moment without any distractions.
Walk and Talk Therapy
What if there's no forest around? Walking in a park can recreate some of these benefits. There are patients that find sitting in an office or being on a virtual call distracting and prefer meeting a therapist to walk. A therapist and client take sessions outside, off the therapy couch, and walk side-by-side in a more natural setting. Walk-and-talk can be a multi-sensory experience and patients enjoy this model feeling freer to express themselves
Narrative Therapy
Narrative Therapy offers the client a way to rewrite the way we see ourselves. There is a story in all of us waiting to come out. There are times when those stories are full of negative depictions of our past, harmful messages we have internalized and thus we manifest ill behaviors. Narrative Therapy offers a way to express those stories. This approach was developed by Michael White and David Epston and its approach is a collaboration between client and therapist to uncover stories we have been carrying for so long. The development of a narrative can help us deal with our life experiences.
Reiki
Reiki is an alternative medicine called energy healing. Reiki practitioners use palm healing or hands-on healing through which a "universal energy" is said to be transferred through the palms of the practitioner to the patient in order to encourage emotional or physical healing.