Individual Therapy
Individual therapy is a process in which a client and a trained therapist work collaboratively toward a desired change. This type of therapy is the most requested form of therapy. Clients explore their feelings, beliefs, or behaviors in a safe, caring, and confidential environment. After setting therapy goals the client works through challenging and influential memories that have a lasting effect on their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. By identifying and changing aspects of their lives clients gain better understanding of their own psychological makeup.
Individuals seek therapy for many reasons, from anxiety to depression, trauma or adverse childhood experiences, grief over the loss of a loved one, life transitions, or simply the desire for greater self-knowledge and personal growth. Individual therapy can be as short as a few sessions or last over the course of several years, it depends on the unique situation of the client and what they are trying to get accomplished through the therapy process.
The first step in getting started with any therapy process is to schedule an initial appointment. Some initial information will be asked to assess the best course of action for therapy. You will be asked to fill out psychological counseling forms and will be asked to read and sign important information about the therapy process and your privacy. Then, in your first session your therapist will ask you lots of questions to gain insight into your unique situation so she can begin formulating a plan on how to reach your therapy goals. At this stage you might begin talking about your relationships with people present and past, your thoughts and your feelings, your concerns, hopes, and ways to solve your problems. You and your therapist will collaboratively decide what therapy goals are most important to you and then forge a plan on reaching those goals.
The word individual describes a person as separate, independent, single, and discrete. However, we are all part of a family, perhaps your family was really small, or an alternative caregiver cared for you, or your growing up experience was being part of a large family. However, you are an individual first. You were born with a unique set of genetic characteristics, and through your own set of life experiences you formed your own particular interpretations and ways of relating to others. Individual therapy can shed light on how you relate and react to your world around you and be an opportunity to explore these very constructs. You will be invited to gain insight into the how and why of your behaviors and how they affect your present relationships.
Therapy enables us to discover deeply held beliefs and patterns, to gain awareness into our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, and ultimately to achieve freedom. With the help of a skillful therapist an individual is empowered to make autonomous, conscious choices. Our choices are often the unconscious continuation of family or individual patterns, and it can be very helpful to be given the objective feedback of an unrelated person helping you discern these patterns.
Individuals are sometimes stuck in systems of faulty beliefs and the therapist may challenge these beliefs. For example, an individual may not believe he or she is worthy of being respected and treated decently, and it may be necessary to find the source of that belief in order to restore a more functional belief.
A person may seek therapy because he or she is in pain or because the person wants to grow. Either way, the therapy process requires effort, courage, and honesty. The therapist must be able to discern his or her own ideas, feelings, patterns, mental constructs, reactions, and perceptions in order to be truly present to his or her client. Of course the therapist’s life experience as well as strategies, theories, techniques, and other skills are tools that contribute to the process—the unfolding of consciousness and the accomplishment of goals set by the individual.
Counseling is a unique chance to explore new ways and get to know yourself, to direct your behaviors in the future, to go deep within ourselves—to truly know who we are.
Relationship Therapy
Family Therapy
Trauma Therapy
