Individual Therapy

 Finding the right therapist and selecting a treatment can be overwhelming. Through years of experience, I believe that no single method of treatment is suited to treat everyone. Therefore, my approach is to use a person-centered approach in getting to know you while providing flexible, dynamic therapy. If a more structured approach is warranted, I will discuss options available with you. Below are brief descriptions of some structured evidence-based treatment options that are available at BDPS.

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is one specific type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It is a 12-session psychotherapy for PTSD. CPT teaches you how to evaluate and change the upsetting thoughts you have had since your trauma. By changing your thoughts, you can change how you feel. In CPT, you will learn skills that can help you decide whether there are more helpful ways to think about your trauma. You will learn how to examine whether the facts support your thought or do not support your thought. And ultimately, you can decide whether or not it makes sense to take a new perspective. 

Prolonged Exposure (PE) is a psychotherapy—or talk therapy— for PTSD. It is one specific type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. PE teaches you to gradually approach trauma-related memories, feelings, and situations that you have been avoiding since your trauma. By confronting these challenges, you can actually decrease your PTSD symptoms. People with PTSD often try to avoid anything that reminds them of the trauma. This can help you feel better in the moment, but not in the long term. Avoiding these feelings and situations actually keeps you from recovering from PTSD. PE works by helping you face your fears. By talking about the details of the trauma and by confronting safe situations that you have been avoiding, you can decrease your PTSD symptoms and regain more control of your life. 

 ACT commonly employs six core principles to help clients develop psychological flexibility:

1. Cognitive defusion: Learning methods to reduce the tendency to reify thoughts, images, emotions, and memories.
2. Acceptance: Allowing unwanted private experiences (thoughts, feelings and urges) to come and go without struggling with them.
3. Contact with the present moment: Awareness of the here and now, experienced with openness, interest, and receptiveness. (e.g., mindfulness)
4. The observing self: Accessing a transcendent sense of self, a continuity of consciousness which is unchanging.
5. Values: Discovering what is most important to oneself.
6. Committed action: Setting goals according to values and carrying them out responsibly, in the service of a meaningful life.

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