Modalities

Strength-Based Therapy

Strength-based therapy is a type of positive psychotherapy and counseling that focuses more on your internal strengths and resourcefulness, and less on weaknesses, failures, and shortcomings. This focus sets up a positive mindset that helps you build on your best qualities, find your strengths, improve resilience, and change your worldview to one that is more positive. A positive attitude, in turn, can help your expectations of yourself and others become more reasonable.

Cliff Notes:

If we spend all our time focusing on what’s wrong, we forget what is going well – and SOMETHING is going well. You may not see it, but I will find it. You and I will discover what you have overcome and use those strengths to do it again. We will create small success, and then bigger, and then bigger. Put the whip away; we all make mistakes. What I care about is what you are willing to do now, and you will to. For a bunch of possible reasons, our strengths get buried by the relentless lack of self-forgiveness. I will put a stop to that. “If you think you can or you think you can’t, you will probably be right.” Henry Ford… I know I think you can, but we need you to see it, too.

Solution-Focused Brief (SFBT)

Solution-focused therapy, sometimes called “brief therapy,” focuses on what clients would like to achieve through therapy rather than on their troubles or mental health issues. The therapist will help the client envision a desirable future and then map out the small and large changes necessary for the client to undergo to realize their vision. The therapist will seize on any successes the client experiences, to encourage them to build on their strengths rather than dwell on their problems or limitations.

Cliff Notes:

We will have time to go back and talk about your life, your experiences, setback, and highlights… I prefer to do that when we have removed or eliminated CURRENT obstacles to improving your life as soon as possible. No whining zone – you make ANY constructive change, big or small, to begin an improved tomorrow TODAY.

Existential Therapy

Existential psychotherapy is based on the philosophical belief that human beings are alone in the world and that this aloneness can only be overcome by creating one’s meaning and exercising one’s freedom to choose. The existential therapist encourages clients to face life’s anxieties head-on and to start making their own decisions. The therapist will emphasize that along with having the freedom to carve out meaning comes the need to take full responsibility for the consequences of one’s decisions. Therapy sessions focus on the client’s present and future rather than their past.

Cliff Notes:

Overcoming your fears, real or perceived, so you direct your outcome. Will it be a perfect outcome each time, hell no. Will you learn from mistakes? Yes, you will. This process allows me to call you on your BS. (BS is the non-technical term for cognitive distortion!). You and I will determine what you CAN control and what you can’t. No excuses and accepting personal responsibility taken for success and missteps. There are many instances where your undesirable condition is a VOLUNTARY one, and I will help you see that you do have a choice

“Sometimes we make choices, and other times choices make us…”

Positive Psychology

Unlike traditional psychology that focuses more on the causes and symptoms of mental illnesses and emotional disturbances, positive psychology emphasizes traits, thinking patterns, behaviors, and experiences that are forward-thinking and can help improve the quality of a person’s day-to-day life. These may include optimism, spirituality, hopefulness, happiness, creativity, perseverance, justice, and the practice of free will. It is an exploration of one’s strengths rather than one’s weaknesses. The goal of positive psychology is not to replace those traditional forms of therapy that center on negative experiences, but instead to expand and give more balance to the therapeutic process.

Cliff Notes:

I have a strong dislike of labels and overused ‘diagnose.’ Why? Because regardless of the name, some skills and resources are reliable and effective. I STRONGLY dislike stigmatization. That means you and others are tempted to focus on a very narrow description associated with a diagnosis or label that is almost always skewed negative. That is a HUGE mistake. I will relentlessly work to remove any stigma or negative self-labeling… and I mean relentless. That’s what it can take until you hear a positive internal voice.

Person-Centered Therapy

Person-centered therapy uses a non-authoritative approach that allows clients to take more of a lead in discussions so that, in the process, they will discover their solutions. The therapist acts as a compassionate facilitator, listening without judgment, and acknowledging the client’s experience without moving the conversation in another direction. The therapist is there to encourage and support the client and to guide the therapeutic process without interrupting or interfering with the client’s process of self-discovery.

Cliff Notes:

If you know more than you think you know, I am going to let you keep going toward solutions. Sometimes you need to talk it out with some validation.

“Make your own luck…”