Areas of Practice — Center for Therapy & Counseling Services

Areas of Practice

Individuals

During individual therapy, the client is treated on a one-on-one basis with a therapist. The most popular form of therapy, individual therapy may encompass many different treatment styles. Common goals of individual therapy can be to inspire change or improve quality of life. People may seek therapy for help with issues that are hard to face alone. Therapy can help people overcome obstacles to their well-being. It can increase positive feelings, such as compassion and self-esteem. People in therapy can learn skills for handling difficult situations, making healthy decisions, and reaching goals. Many find they enjoy the therapeutic journey of becoming more self-aware. Some people even go to ongoing therapy for self-growth. Therapy can help treat mental, emotional, physical, and behavioral issues. Some concerns can be addressed through short-term therapy over a few weeks. However, chronic or more complex concerns can require long-term therapy. Even if therapy cannot cure a condition, it can help people develop healthy coping skills.

Couples

Couples therapy is a form of therapy designed to focus on the relationship between two people by developing communication, resolving interpersonal conflict, and enhancing the dynamics of the relationship. In couples therapy, the “client” is the relationship between the two people seeking help. The goal is to create a true partnership that will guide and sustain the well-being of relationships. Everyone can benefit from couples therapy, whether an unmarried couple learning to work through issues that may arise when developing future plans, newly married couples establishing a healthy way of “being” with their significant other in life, or seasoned couples finding & reigniting the fire that once burned bright in the early years of marriage.

Families

Family therapy offers families a way to develop or maintain a healthy, functional family. Family therapy is a form of treatment that is designed to address specific issues affecting the health and functioning of a family. It can be used to help a family through a difficult period, a major transition, or mental or behavioral health problems in family members. It should be noted that in family therapy, the term “family” does not necessarily mean blood relatives. In this context, “family” is anyone who plays a long-term supportive role in one’s life, which may not mean blood relations or family members in the same household. In a nutshell, the goal of family therapy is to work together to heal any mental, emotional, or psychological problems tearing a family apart.

Children

Treating a child’s mental health problems as soon as possible can help children reduce problems at home, in school, and in forming friendships. It can also help with healthy development into adulthood. Therapy is a key component to improving mental health. When children are young, it is common for therapy to include the parent. Therapy with children can include talking, playing, or other activities to help the child express feelings and thoughts. Therapists may also observe parents and children together and then make suggestions for finding different ways to react. Therapy is most effective if it fits the needs of the specific child and family. Sometimes, health problems such as poor sleep, trouble breathing, poor vision, difficulty hearing, or learning problems can cause behavioral or emotional symptoms, or make them worse. Therapy can help kids explore their feelings in a safe, supportive, non-judgmental environment. Through talking, playing, making art, and more, kids learn healthy ways of coping, expressing themselves, and behaving. Therapy can be beneficial for a wide range of issues, from kids experiencing a difficult time in their lives, to children with ongoing mental health issues.

Adolescents

Therapy can be a safe space for teens to process thoughts and emotions. Mental health issues can cause difficulties at home, school, or with friends. Relationships can cause stress. Relationships between parents and teens are crucial to healthy development. But they may become strained by the changes that come with adolescence. At least 1 in 5 teens (20%) have mental health issues. Teens have mental health problems when their actions, feelings, or thoughts regularly create obstacles in their lives. Everything said in therapy is confidential, unless the therapist has good reason to believe the teen might hurt themselves or someone else. Some problems resolve very quickly. Others are more complex and take longer.

Multicultural

Multicultural therapy seeks to understand how cultural and identity issues impact an individual’s mental health and how those factors might influence a person’s relationship with therapy itself. Multicultural therapy acknowledges how various aspects of a person’s cultural identity might influence their mental health. Relevant factors can include issues of race, ethnicity, immigration status, religion, socioeconomic background, and gender identity. Multicultural therapy is, at its heart, about appreciating that individuals are not all the same and that their personal background—their ethnicity, their race, and their cultural context—is an important component of who they are. These factors are an essential element of the assessment process and their treatment. Our therapists acknowledge that matters of race and cultural identity can have a powerful impact on mental health in both positive and negative ways.

LGBTQ

Although a person’s sexual or romantic orientation or gender identity may not be a source of distress, people who identify as LGBTQ+ may find that the social stigma of living as a minority is a source of stress or anxiety. Despite rapidly growing cultural acceptance of diverse sexual and romantic orientations and gender identifications, oppression, discrimination, and marginalization of LGBTQ+ people persists. Coping with discrimination and oppression, coming out to one’s family, and sorting out an “authentic” sense of self in the face of social expectations and pressures can lead to higher levels of depression, anxiety, substance use, and other mental health concerns for LGBTQ+ people. Our therapists have a deep understanding of the unique challenges that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals and couples face. We also work with parents to be supportive of their LGBTQ+ children. Most gay people are growing up invisible. They are having to learn how to become adult as straight people do. They're also having to learn at the same time what to do with being invisible, with having nobody know who they really are, with being terrified of what would happen if they were known. Most gay people do not grow up in gay families. Our therapists embrace a positive view of LGBTQ identities and relationships and address the negative influences that homophobia, transphobia, and heterosexism have on the lives of LGBTQ clients.