Psychotherapy

Northcoast Psychology, in cooperation with Trysa Shulman & Associates, offers:

• Individual Counseling/Therapy
• Family Counseling/Therapy
• Couples Counseling
• Group Therapy : Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) based group therapy for individuals aged 14 years and older and their families

Individual psychotherapy is a collaborative process that fosters the growth and development of new styles of thinking, behaviors and habits.

We humans are complicated organisms that do the best we can with the tools we have. There are times in life when the tools that we have are not optimally suited for our needs and we must learn new ways of being, thinking and doing. For example, we all experience periods of high stress in our lives that sometimes require us to look for new ways to cope and adapt. Sometimes we can even experience sustained feelings of anxiety, sadness, anger or numbness that can profoundly impact the way we perceive and interact with the world. In fact, the incidence of depression and anxiety are higher now than ever before.

Depression is not merely feeling sad. In fact, an individual may not report being sad at all. Depression may manifest as anger or numbness or simply a lack of enjoyment of previously enjoyable things. More generally depression represents a change in the way we process and interact with the world around us. Psychotherapy can help us overcome the cognitive distortions inherent in depression and re-learn more productive, more adaptive ways of being.

Anxiety can be adaptive in some cases. However, it can also be crippling and debilitating. It can force those who suffer with it to shrink their worlds to progressively smaller and smaller spheres all the while there anxiety can grow to encompass greater and greater proportions of their lives. Here’s well psychotherapy is invaluable in learning how to process, adapt and overcome this debilitating illness.

Psychotherapy can be helpful for families and couples as well. They may benefit from learning more adaptive and productive ways to communicate with each other. Additionally, families of individuals with mental illness can often benefit from adjunctive therapy.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy is an extremely effective treatment modality for individuals who suffer from:

• High sensitivity
• High reactivity
• Slow return to baseline

DBT was first developed by Marsha Linehan and is based around several modules:

• Mindfulness
• Distress Tolerance
• Emotion Regulation
• Interpersonal Relationship Skills

It can be conducted in individual or group formats. At Northcoast Psychology we utilize DBT skills in individual therapy when appropriate. We also conduct intensive DBT based group therapy in conjunction with Dr. Trysa Shulman and Trysa Shulman and Associates. We run groups for individuals ages 13-years and up through adulthood. More information can be found on Dr. Trysa Shulman’s website.