Counseling and Therapy

 Below are brief descriptions of the methods health professionals use and/or recommend in working with teens and their families.

Art Therapy
Art therapy is a mental health profession that uses the creative process of art making to improve and enhance the physical, mental and emotional well-being of individuals of all ages.

It is based on the belief that the creative process involved in artistic self-expression helps people to resolve conflicts and problems, develop interpersonal skills, manage behavior, reduce stress, increase self-esteem and self-awareness, and achieve insight. 

Art therapy integrates the fields of human development, visual art (drawing, painting, sculpture, and other art forms), and the creative process with models of counseling and psychotherapy. Art therapy is used with children, adolescents, adults, older adults, groups, and families to assess and treat the following: anxiety, depression, and other mental and emotional problems and disorders; mental illness; substance abuse and other addictions; family and relationship issues; abuse and domestic violence; social and emotional difficulties related to disability and illness; trauma and loss; physical, cognitive, and neurological problems; and psychosocial difficulties related to medical illness. Art therapy programs are found in a number of settings including hospitals, clinics, public and community agencies, residential programs, wellness centers, educational institutions, businesses, and private practices.

Behavior Therapy / Behavior Modification Therapy
Behavior therapy is a type of psychotherapy that focuses on changing undesirable behaviors. Behavior therapy involves identifying objectionable, maladaptive behaviors and replacing them with healthier types of behavior. This type of therapy is also referred to a behavior modification therapy. 

Behavior therapy can be used to treat a wide range of psychological conditions including, but not limited to, depression, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and certain addictions.

Behavior therapy may also be used to treat insomnia, chronic fatigue, and phobic behavior. This type of therapy may require fewer treatment sessions than cognitive therapy. However, the length of therapeutic treatment varies with each individual patient. In some cases, behavior therapy is used as a treatment for obesity. When used for obesity, behavior therapy starts with analyzing eating and activity patterns, as well as dieting methods and other habits. The therapist then uses information gained through such analysis to identify positive strategies for promoting weight loss, healthier eating habits, and a more positive self-image.

Biomedical Treatment
You may have heard of biomedical treatment if your child has autism, ADHD, learning difficulties or 'behavioural problems' that do not respond to discipline. Biomedical treatment treats the learning/behavioural problem based on its biological and biochemical bases. It treats the root cause of the problem, without which, higher-level treatments like occupational, speech or behavioural therapies are usually ineffective. That's because these problems are neurological, and in some instances, biochemical in origin.

They are not behavioural problems. That is only an outward symptom, not the cause. These problems are not only treatable, they are curable as well (provided you start early enough). Your child is not "just misbehaving". Biomedical treatment, also known as Integrative Medicine or functional medicine, integrates practises from several fields of medicine.

Like any discipline in medicine, its practises are based on scientific research. Practitioners are required to formally update their knowledge at least every two years. 

Client Centered Therapy / Person Centered Therapy
Person-centered therapy, which is also known as client-centered, non-directive, or Rogerian therapy, is an approach to counseling and psychotherapy that places much of the responsibility for the treatment process on the client, with the therapist taking a nondirective role. Two primary goals of person-centered therapy are increased self-esteem and greater openness to experience.

Some of the related changes that this form of therapy seeks to foster in clients include closer agreement between the client's idealized and actual selves; better self-understanding; lower levels of defensiveness, guilt, and insecurity; more positive and comfortable relationships with others; and an increased capacity to experience and express feelings at the moment they occur.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes the important role of thinking in how we feel and what we do. Cognitive-behavioral therapy does not exist as a distinct therapeutic technique. The term "cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)" is a very general term for a classification of therapies with similarities.

There are several approaches to cognitive-behavioral therapy, including Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, Rational Behavior Therapy, Rational Living Therapy, Cognitive Therapy, and Dialectic Behavior Therapy.  CBT is based on the Cognitive Model of Emotional Response. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is based on the idea that our thoughts cause our feelings and behaviors, not external things, like people, situations, and events. The benefit of this fact is that we can change the way we think to feel / act better even if the situation does not change. Some forms of therapy assume that the main reason people get better in therapy is because of the positive relationship between the therapist and client.

Cognitive-behavioral therapists believe it is important to have a good, trusting relationship, but that is not enough.

CBT therapists believe that the clients change because they learn how to think differently and they act on that learning.

Therefore, CBT therapists focus on teaching rational self-counseling skills. CBT is a collaborative effort between the therapist and the client. 

Cognitive-behavioral therapists seek to learn what their clients want out of life (their goals) and then help their clients achieve those goals. The therapist's role is to listen, teach, and encourage, while the client's roles is to express concerns, learn, and implement that learning.

Couples Counseling
Couple’s counseling is based on the premise that individuals and their problems are best handled within the context of the couple’s relationship. Typically, both partners in the relationship attend the counseling session to discuss the couple’s specific issues.

The aim of couple’s counseling is to help a couple deal appropriately with their immediate problems and to learn better ways of relating in general. Couples therapy or couple’s counseling is a useful modality of help for couples who are experiencing difficulties such as repetitive arguments, feelings of distance or emptiness in the relationship, pervasive feelings of anger, resentment and or dissatisfaction or lack of interest in affection or in a physical relationship with one another. With the aid of a qualified clinician, couples can bring peace, stability and communication back into their relationship thus affecting their lives and the lives of those most impacted by them and their relationship.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, often called DBT therapy, is a method of treatment that was devised by Marsha Linehan, faculty at the University of Washington in Seattle, for the treatment of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Typically clients with BPD are notoriously difficult to treat.

They often do not attend regularly, frequently fail to respond to therapeutic efforts and make considerable demands on the emotional resources of the therapist (particularly when suicidal and parasuicidal behaviors are prominent). The effectiveness of DBT therapy has been demonstrated in many controlled studies across different research groups. Because of this success and due to similar behavior patterns, DBT therapy is now being used in many settings as a viable therapy for the treatment of bipolar disorder. 

People who have bipolar disorder are also sometimes diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. For these people, DBT therapy can be a good treatment option.

Even people who do not have BPD may find that incorporating some aspects of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy into their talk therapy may be helpful.

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)
ECT is useful for certain patients with significant depression, particularly for those who cannot take or are not responding to antidepressants, have severe depression, or are at a high risk for suicide.

ECT often is effective in cases where antidepressant medications do not provide sufficient relief of symptoms. 

During the ECT procedure, an electric current is passed through the brain to produce controlled convulsions (seizures). 

Highly effective, ECT relieves depression within 1 to 2 weeks after beginning treatments. After ECT, some patients will continue to have maintenance ECT, while others will return to antidepressant medications. In recent years, the technique of ECT has been much improved.

The treatment is given in the hospital under anesthesia so that people receiving ECT do not feel pain.

Family Counseling
Family counseling is a type of psychotherapy that may have one or more objectives. Family counseling may help to promote better relationships and understanding within a family. It may be incident specific, as for example family counseling during a divorce, or the approaching death of a family member. Alternately family counseling may address the needs of the family when one family member suffers from a mental or physical illness that alters his or her behavior or habits in negative ways. Family counseling often occurs with all members of the family unit present. This may not always be the case.

A family member who suffers from alcoholism or drug addiction might not attend sessions, and might actually be the reason why other family members seek out family counseling. 

For families, family counseling often helps because it involves a disinterested third party who does not favor any one member of the family. This is generally why a therapist for one family member will not agree to be a family counselor for the client’s family.

Display of partiality can render family counseling ineffective. Different theoretical models exist in family counseling.

A therapist may work from a behavioral stance, from Gestalt principals, or from a combination of therapeutic approaches.

Whatever the approach, the main goal continues to be to improve the relationship of each family member to the others, so that the family progresses as a harmonious unit.

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