What is CBT?

ACT is a values-driven approach to creating a meaningful life through mindful action. The world around us and unhelpful thoughts and feelings within us inevitably pose barriers to our ability to live a meaningful life. ACT uses a combination of Buddhist philosophy, mindfulness, and action to help people manage and overcome those barriers so they can live meaningful lives despite the things we cannot control.

Mindfulness involves conscious awareness and attention to the present moment in a non-judgmental way. When we practice nonjudgmentally observing whatever we are experiencing from moment-to-moment (e.g., thoughts, emotions, sounds, or taste), we create a pause, allowing us to choose how we respond instead of reacting automatically. This allows us to experience greater enjoyment and openness to experience.

Change is hard, even when you really want it. Many people have mixed feelings about changing long-standing ways of thinking and doing things. Motivational Interviewing is a method of being real about these mixed feelings, finding ways to overcome barriers to change, and increasing readiness for change. This allows people to return to their treatment with greater clarity, motivation, and action.

Behavioral Activation can be a skill used in combination with other treatments or a treatment for depression on its own. It is about engaging in meaningful activities, whether from a practical standpoint (e.g., clear off the counter that makes me feel bad every time I look at it) or an emotional standpoint (e.g., take a walk around my neighborhood and feel connected to my home.) Avoidance of these activities may be easier in the short run, but hurtful in the long run. We also try to change behaviors and environmental factors that may be maintaining or worsening depressive symptoms.

Functional Analytic Psychotherapy focuses on interactions and experiences that happen in-session and uses the therapeutic relationship to facilitate change. By identifying problematic dynamics that show up in relationships outside of therapy and discussing how those dynamics might show up in treatment and use the therapy session to develop and practice new ways of interacting. This present moment focus and emphasis on the therapeutic relationship can strengthen the effectiveness of any other type of therapy and can help new habits happen where you need them to.

Developed by lived-experience therapist and researcher Dr. Marsha Linehan, DBT focuses on learning skills to increase emotional regulation, distress tolerance, mindfulness, and interpersonal effectiveness. It is particularly useful for people who experience negative emotions that are unpredictable, frequent, and intense. While we do not offer a full DBT treatment program, we do teach DBT skills in individual therapy.

Habit Reversal Training is a behavioral approach used to treat a variety of body focused repetitive behaviors such as skin picking and hair pulling. It involves building awareness of thought-behavior patterns, identifying more adaptive counter behaviors, and developing new ways of dealing with the stress that often contributes to these habits. It is also a treatment for Tourette’s and motor/vocal tics to help people learn how to best anticipate and handle the urges involved in these issues and ultimately decrease the frequency of learned tic behaviors.

Social Rhythm Therapy teaches people to develop routines that reflect and support their internal circadian rhythms. This can involve sleep or work schedules as well as using social support to help restore balance to daily behaviors. SRT can be especially useful in the treatment of different types of mood dysregulation or when daily life feels chaotic.

SPACE is a parent-based treatment program for children, adolescents, and young adults with anxiety disorders and related problems, like school refusal or failure to launch. While children may participate in treatment if they choose to, SPACE focuses on changes that parents can make to their own behavior, rather than relying on the child to change. Parents learn to respond supportively to their anxious child while also reducing the ways they have been accommodating, and thus maintaining, the child's symptoms.

Theraplay is a child and family therapy for toddlers to adolescents and a caregiver. It teaches caregivers to use playful interactions as a basis upon which to model secure attachment, positive relationships and self-image, and thus support emotion regulation. Theraplay is a good option for children who prefer a more movement- and activity-friendly therapy and who have not responded to traditional therapies. Theraplay has been used to help children with low mood, hyperactivity, aggressive behaviors, ADHD, attachment difficulties or complex trauma, and autism. It can be used as its own stand-alone treatment or to enhance other types of therapy.

Inference-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a treatment that focuses on obsessional doubt and thoughts as the driver of compulsive behaviors and avoidance. It is a non-exposure-based approach for treating OCD, health anxiety, body dysmorphic disorder, and hoarding. By learning how to dismantle obsessive doubts and worries, individuals gain the ability to interrupt the doubts and worries before spiraling and engaging in compulsive behaviors and avoidance.