Treatment Specialties
In this section you will find information about:
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What is anxiety?
Anxiety is defined as a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. Many people find it difficult to manage anxiety when these thoughts and feelings cause panic and difficulty functioning on a daily basis. These symptoms may create despair and feelings of helplessness as an individual tries to find ways to cope and survive the intensity of these uncomfortable and overwhelming feelings. These feelings can lead to cognitive distortions, such as:
Overgeneralization: This means that you are concluding something based on one thing that happened. Applying one experience to all experiences.
Jumping to Conclusions/Mind Reading: You assume things quickly and make conclusions that are based on your perception of the situation.
Catastrophizing: This means that you imagine a terrible scenario where a horrible thing happens based upon a tiny detail fear or ideal.
Personalization: Personalization means that you believe that it is about you. An event occurs and you are convinced that it was because of you.
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Anxiety Treatment
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a common type of therapy often used to treat anxiety disorders as well as depression. According to scientific research studies, CBT is as effective in the treatment of depression as antidepressants.
CBT teaches you about cognitive distortions. Often, we are unaware of these unhealthy patterns of thinking until we learn about how they impact our lives in a negative way. Emily provides solution-focused therapy to aid an individual in better understanding these thoughts and feelings and finding coping strategies to improve a person's day-to-day life.
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What is Depression?
A mental health disorder that is characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life. Possible causes include a combination of biological, psychological, and social sources of distress.
The primary symptoms of depression are a sad mood and/or loss of interest in life as a result of activities that were once pleasurable losing their appeal. Individuals may feel helpless and hopeless and find daily living tasks difficult and exhausting. An individual may feel overwhelmed and have a low level of confidence in their ability to cope with their life day to day.
These feelings can lead to cognitive distortions, such as:
Filtering: This means that you take the negative details and magnify them.
"Black and White thinking”: In this distortion, you see things as "black-or-white." There are no shades of gray or middle ground
Personalization: Personalization means that you believe that it is about you. An event occurs and you are convinced that it was because of you.
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Depression Treatment
The recommended treatment for both anxiety and depression is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). This approach focuses on the connection between thoughts and behaviors and how both play a role in either increasing or decreasing symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Emily utilizes positive psychology and emotional intelligence centered practices to provide support, encouragement, insight and inspiration in the mist of troubled times and provide real solution based therapeutic approaches.
Womens’s Trauma Issues
What represents a trauma in a person's life?
Trauma is defined by the American Psychological Association (APA) as the emotional response someone has to an extremely negative event. While trauma is a normal reaction to a horrible event, the effects can be so severe that they interfere with an individual’s ability to live a normal life. In a case such as this, help may be needed to treat the stress and dysfunction caused by the traumatic event and to restore the individual to a state of emotional well-being. the individual to a state of emotional well-being.
What is the treatment for trauma?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing Treatment) therapy is a phased, focused approach to treating trauma and other symptoms by reconnecting the traumatized person in a safe and measured way to the images, self-thoughts, emotions, and body sensations associated with the trauma, and allowing the natural healing powers of the brain to move toward adaptive resolution. It is based on the idea that symptoms occur when trauma and other negative or challenging experiences overwhelm the brain’s natural ability to heal, and that the healing process can be facilitated and completed through bilateral stimulation while the client is re-experiencing the trauma in the context of the safe environment of the therapist’s office (dual awareness).
Mood Disorders
If you have a mood disorder, your general emotional state or mood is distorted or inconsistent with your circumstances and interferes with your ability to function. You may be extremely sad, empty or irritable, or you may have periods of depression alternating with being exessively happy or feelings of being “high” that influences your ability to sleep and make decisions that make you feel good about yourself. Individuals with mood disorders find this ever changing mood challenging to manage and understand and normally creates strain on your ability to function in life and maintain healthy relationships.
Mood Disorder Treatment
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a structured program of psychotherapy with a strong educational component designed to provide skills for managing intense emotions and negotiating social relationships. The “dialectic” in dialectical behavior therapy is an acknowledgment that real life is complex. It is continually aimed at balancing opposing forces and investigating the truth of powerful negative emotions.
DBT acknowledges the need for change in a context of acceptance of situations and recognizes the constant flux of feelings—many of them contradictory—without having to get caught up in them. Therapist-teachers help patients understand and accept that thought is an inherently messy process. DBT is itself an interplay of science and practice.