Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a type of mental health treatment that helps people understand how their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all connected. The main idea is that our thoughts about a situation affect how we feel and what we do. For example, if someone thinks "I'm going to mess up this presentation," they might feel anxious and avoid speaking in public. CBT teaches people how to spot unhelpful thought patterns and replace them with more balanced ones, leading to better feelings and healthier actions.
In CBT sessions, I work with you like a coach or teacher to help you learn new skills. You'll practice noticing your thoughts, keeping track of them in a diary, and testing whether they're actually true. The therapist also gives you "homework" to try these new skills in real life. What makes CBT different from other therapies is that it focuses on current problems and finding practical solutions, rather than spending a lot of time talking about the past. Research has shown that CBT can help with many issues, including anxiety, depression, and stress.
Motivational Interviewing
Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a counseling style that helps people find their own reasons to make positive changes in their lives, rather than being told what to do. It's based on the idea that people are more likely to change when they come up with their own solutions and feel ready to change. Counselors using MI listen carefully and ask questions that help people talk about their own desires, abilities, reasons, and need for change. They avoid arguing or trying to force change, and instead work with the person to strengthen their own motivation.
In a typical MI session, the counselor uses specific skills like asking open questions, reflecting back what they hear, and highlighting when they notice the person talking about wanting to change. For example, instead of saying "You need to quit smoking," a counselor might ask "What concerns do you have about your smoking?" This gentle approach helps people feel understood and respected, which makes them more open to thinking about change. The counselor's job is to guide the conversation while letting the person be the expert on their own life and what changes might work best for them.
Solution Focused Therapy
Solution Focused Therapy (SFT) is a type of counseling that focuses on building solutions rather than dwelling on problems. Instead of spending a lot of time talking about what's wrong, the therapist helps people identify what's already working in their lives and times when their problems aren't as bad. They ask questions like "What would a better day look like?" and "When was the last time you handled this challenge well?" This approach helps people see that they already have skills and strengths they can use to make things better.
In SFT sessions, therapists also help people set clear, specific goals and notice small positive changes. The idea is that you don't need to understand everything about why a problem started to fix it - just like you don't need to know how your car engine broke to know when it's running better. This makes SFT typically shorter than other types of therapy, often showing results in just a few sessions.
Family Systems Therapy
Family Systems Therapy looks at problems by considering how everyone in a family affects each other, kind of like how pulling one string in a spider web makes the whole web move. Instead of focusing on just one person's issues, this therapy sees how family patterns, rules, and ways of communicating all work together. For example, if a teenager is acting out, a family therapist wouldn't just work with the teen but would look at how the whole family's behavior might be contributing to or affected by the situation. The main idea is that what happens to one family member impacts everyone else, and sometimes fixing a problem means changing how the whole family works together.
During family therapy sessions, the therapist watches how family members talk to each other, who tends to take charge, and how they handle disagreements. They might notice patterns that the family can't see because they're so used to them, like how maybe everyone tiptoes around Dad's bad mood, or how Mom and Sister team up against Brother. The therapist helps the family try new ways of talking and solving problems together, with the goal of making the whole family system healthier. This might mean helping parents work better as a team, improving how siblings get along, or making sure everyone in the family feels heard and understood.