About us

We support individuals across the lifespan, from children and families to adults. Science, creativity, and skill-building create real change. Collaborate with us.

Our mission

We do therapy because it works. We develop treatment programs in collaboration with each individual. They are designed to be flexible and travel well into your life outside the therapy room. Treatment focuses on alleviating suffering and increasing your connection with what’s important in your life.

Our care

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3rd wave CBT
This is not old school CBT. Third wave CBT focuses on what’s important to someone, how to decrease barriers to that, and how to increase engagement with what’s important. It pulls together elements of mindfulness, experiential learning, and flexible thinking and action.
02
The therapeutic relationship
The relationship between you and your therapist is essential to any treatment. We go above and beyond to match you with a therapist who is a great fit for your personality. Your therapist gets to know you as a person before creating a treatment plan with your collaboration. Every intervention requires trust in your therapist and we do the work to earn that trust.
03
Short term, medium term, or long term care
Length of treatment varies depending on symptoms and individual preference. Although some treatments are around 8-12 sessions, our approach is flexible and tailored to each person’s goals and needs. Some people need multiple sessions per week to reach their goals; others check in with us once or twice a year indefinitely to maintain progress and accountability. We flex to fit each person’s needs.
04
For our youngest clients and their families
We see all ages. Parent involvement in child therapy is essential to establishing healthier patterns and supporting children as they learn new habits. What parent involvement looks like depends on the child’s age and the type of problem they are dealing with. Generally, the younger the child, the more parent involvement therapy requires. As such, we are here to support parents as much as children in this process.

What our treatment does for you

Living a more expansive life means making space for the things we can’t control by living as meaningful a life as possible. You don’t have to choose between deep insight and symptom relief. Attaining greater wellbeing includes both, and we aim to hit all targets.

What is CBT

Break the cycle
All of us, even children, have habits and have inherited from our families or society certain ideas or ways of doing things. Sometimes, these patterns don’t serve us. Sometimes, we are overlooking healthier ways to move through the world that have been available to us all along. Therapy can help break the cycle and increase your agency in how and why you do what you do.
Improve relationships–inside and out
Relationships of all stripes impact our functioning, and are impacted by how we function. Therapy can help address recurring patterns in how you relate to others, whether in families, romantic relationships, or at work, and find ways to decrease conflict and increase connection.
Live a bigger life
Systemic factors and other things in life that we cannot control play a big role in mental health. Therapy helps us make the most out of what we can change and find the best ways to deal with the things we cannot change. Living bigger means being in touch with and spending more time with what’s important to us while minimizing the negative impact of what we can’t control.

Commitment to equity and social justice

We recognize the role of systemic factors in creating and maintaining suffering in the world. As such, we work to dismantle systems of oppression within ourselves by practicing cultural humility and making diversity and culture part of regular professional development for our staff. We defer to one’s lived experience. And we take radical accountability, accounting first for our own role in a situation as we work to right systemic wrongs.

The Chicago Cognitive Behavioral Treatment Center was built to serve the suffering in our community and employ staff, regardless of race, creed, sex, or sexual orientation.

Impact of treatments offered here

CBT for PTSD & Social Anxiety
A 2018 meta-analysis found that people receiving CBT for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and social anxiety disorder experience a remission rate ~51%.
Mindfulness & Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I-CBT) for OCD
A multicenter randomized controlled trial found that Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I-CBT) for obsessive-compulsive disorder and mindfulness are both viable and effective treatment options for people with OCD.
SPACE & CBT for Childhood Anxiety
Largest clinical trial of SPACE shows SPACE is as effective as CBT for childhood anxiety

Contact us

Questions & misconceptions

No, we offer a wide range of treatments, including CBT. Some non-CBT treatments we offer include Behavioral Activation, psychodynamic psychotherapy, motivational interviewing, group therapy, mindfulness-based stress reduction, and parent training. There is no one best treatment for everyone. The treatment you do depends on the type of problem you’re dealing with, your preferences, and your clinician’s recommendations.
Yes, we specialize in a broad range of cognitive behavioral therapies including more recently developed empirically supported modalities such as Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP).
There is no one way CBT looks in practice, and that is because it is always adapted and personalized for each individual. The ‘C’ in CBT refers to the cognitive component, in which the focus is on how we think about things and make sense of things. The ‘B’ in CBT refers to the behavioral component, or what we do. The amount of focus on each component changes depending on each person and the type of problems they are trying to solve. Some people take a very action-oriented approach and practice different things to do in a situation. They might do roleplays in the office or practice new actions outside the office. The “manual” refers to treatment protocols and techniques that have been documented in both research and clinical practice. They are not meant to be a verbatim script for treatment, but rather a catalog of tools and strategies that we draw from and implement in a personalized way for each individual.
Why not do both? CBT treats symptoms AND gets at the source of the problem. No one should ever feel like they must choose between these in therapy. CBT aims to identify how an individual’s unique underlying, pervasive thought patterns and behaviors (for example, avoidance) contribute to current symptoms as well as to problems in the past and outlooks on the future. CBT is highly personalized, and physical, emotional, and social factors play integral roles in treatment of not only symptoms, but also the person as a whole.
The relationship between you and your therapist is essential to any treatment. We go above and beyond to match you with a therapist who is a great fit for your personality. Your therapist gets to know you as a person before creating a treatment plan with your collaboration. Every intervention requires trust in your therapist and we do the work to earn that trust. But it doesn’t end there.

CBT often starts by looking at the things that have bubbled up to the surface, and then follows them deeper down to find the source. The process of going deeper into your experiences and how they inform how you operate goes hand in hand with a relationship in which your therapist gets to know you in more depth as you get to know yourself in more depth.

In a nutshell, no, you do not need another therapist to have a therapeutic relationship, but we are always happy to collaborate with any other providers you have.

Our team

Our team is grounded, empathic, and perceptive. We bring top-notch knowledge and compassion to our work with individuals and families. We work hard with you to go to those difficult places, internal and external, to develop resilience, courage, and calm.

MEET THE FULL TEAM

Our approach to care

The spirit of our approach is active and genuine. We embrace imperfection as a natural state of being and view mistakes as portals for learning. We regard humor and humility as invaluable tools and use them to change our perspectives.

More about our care

Getting the right care

STEP 1
We match you with the right therapist
Our intake coordinator will guide you through the process of finding the right therapist and logistics.
STEP 2
Book an introduction before committing
Therapist match is key to a productive relationship and treatment outcomes. Speak with a therapist before committing to find the right fit for you.
STEP 3
Get personalized treatment
The first stage of treatment is the intake, in which we get to know you, your history, establish therapy goals and together create a plan for your treatment. The next stage of treatment is beginning therapy and enacting your plan, flexibly and responsively, until you meet your goals.

CONTACT US

What is CBT?
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What We Treat
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Our Locations
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I can highly recommend Dr. Amanda Holly and her staff as I frequently collaborate with her. Dr. Holly and her staff provide exceptional, effective, and empathic care to their patients. They have outstanding expertise in cognitive behavior therapy for anxiety disorders.

Stephen H. Hanus, MD Child, Adolescent, & Adult Psychiatrist

Collaborating with other professionals

We believe that collaboration with other professionals is very important to promote consistency, generalizability, and thus effectiveness of behavioral interventions. We can facilitate referrals and ongoing collaboration.

Referrals

Our accolades

Thousands of clients served. Clinician owned and operated. Published scientist practitioners. Deliberately small caseloads. Quality over quantity.

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Amanda Holly authors research on the mind-body connection
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Lead Psychologist Daniel Mortenson is a guest blogger at Learning Lab Chicago
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Marie Chesaniuk authors research on diversity in healthcare

Start your care journey

Let’s get started! Our intake coordinator will guide you through the process and connect you with a therapist who is the best possible fit for your needs.

CONTACT US

About us

Our mission

3rd wave CBT

The therapeutic relationship

Short term, medium term, or long term care

For our youngest clients and their families

What our treatment does for you

Break the cycle

Improve relationships–inside and out

Live a bigger life

Commitment to equity and social justice

Impact of treatments offered here

CBT for PTSD & Social Anxiety

Mindfulness & Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I-CBT) for OCD

SPACE & CBT for Childhood Anxiety

Questions & misconceptions

Our team

Amanda Holly, Ph.D.

Bernardo Loiacono, Ph.D.

Katherine “Kayce” Hyde Brott, Ph.D.

Our approach to care

Getting the right care

We match you with the right therapist

Book an introduction before committing

Get personalized treatment

What is CBT?

What We Treat

Our Locations

Collaborating with other professionals

Our accolades

Amanda Holly authors research on the mind-body connection

Lead Psychologist Daniel Mortenson is a guest blogger at Learning Lab Chicago

Marie Chesaniuk authors research on diversity in healthcare

Start your care journey