Your first appointment will focus on defining the nature of your concerns, taking a personal history of life events and patterns that may have contributed to these problems/issues, and determining what further assessment and/or treatment you may need. You may be asked to fill out some questionnaires before your first appointment and to bring them with you to your first appointment. At the end of the assessment session you will be presented with recommendations for treatment.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
I treats a wide range of problems experienced by adolescents and adults. Although Cognitive Behavioural Therapy intervention is the primary technique used to help you Think, Feel and get Better, I will work with you in a comprehensive manner to best suit your needs.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for most problems/issues involves 8-20 sessions of individual, couple or group psychotherapy.
In CBT you will normally meet with your therapist for approximately an hour a week. At the beginning of treatment you will discuss your current problems and goals for treatment. After you and your therapist establish goals for treatment, you will spend your sessions learning techniques for challenging your symptoms and changing your behaviour.
In addition to talking about your problems, you will be asked to do homework each week. The amount of homework varies but typically consists of ½ hour to 1 hour per day of some combination of monitoring your symptoms, monitoring your thoughts, challenging your assumptions and beliefs and experimenting with new behaviour.
In CBT your therapist acts as a “coach” who helps you to learn a variety of techniques that will help you to approach your problems in new ways.
As you learn to employ CBT techniques, you gradually require less contact with your therapist. However, at the beginning of therapy it is important to meet once per week in order to get some momentum going. Once you are confident with the techniques, the time between appointments is often increased to once every two weeks or once per month.
Interpersonal Psychotherapy – Through one-on-one conversations, this approach focuses on the client’s current life and relationships within the family, social, and work environments. The goal is to identify and resolve problems with insight, as well as build on strengths.
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy – Based on the principles of psychoanalysis, this therapy is less intense, tends to occur once or twice a week, and spans a shorter time. It is based on the premise that human behavior is determined by one’s past experiences, genetic factors, and current situation. This approach recognizes the significant influence that emotions and unconscious motivation can have on our behavior.
Couples Counseling and Family Therapy These approaches to therapy involve discussions and problem-solving sessions facilitated by the therapist – sometimes with the couple or entire family group, sometimes with individuals. Such therapy can help couples and family members improve their understanding of, and the way they respond to, one another. This type of therapy can resolve patterns of behavior that might lead to more severe mental illness. Family therapy can help educate the individuals about the nature of mental disorders and teach them skills to cope better with the effects of having a family member with a mental illness – such as how to deal with feelings of anger or guilt.
In group treatment a small number of people (4-8) with similar problems and concerns meet for 8-16 weeks of group CBT. Most groups meet for 8-16 sessions. Group sessions are usually longer than 50 minutes.
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