At Clarity Therapy, we believe that each client has the potential for healing and change and is responsible for their choices and changes, and for meeting their therapy goals – we do not make guarantees for healing. Your therapist formulates the therapeutic plan collaboratively with his or her clients based on each client’s needs, their presenting problems, and the goals they wish to achieve. We use a combination of cognitive behavioral, existential, and client centered therapy with most clients.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) stresses the role of thinking patterns in how we feel and what we do. It is based on the belief that our thoughts, rather than people or outside events, cause our negative feelings. The therapist assists the client in identifying, testing the reality of, and correcting dysfunctional beliefs underlying his or her thinking – uncovering the ‘root to the fruit’ so to speak. The therapist then helps the client modify those thoughts and the behaviors that flow from them. CBT is a structured collaboration between therapist and client and often calls for homework assignments.
Existential Psychotherapy
Existential psychotherapy is based on the philosophical belief that human beings are fully equipped to create one’s own meaning, and exercising one’s freedom to choose. The existential therapist encourages clients to face life’s anxieties and to start making his or her own decisions while reflecting on consequences and moving away from fear based thinking. The therapist will emphasize that along with having the freedom to carve out meaning comes the need to take full responsibility for the consequences of one’s decisions.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment. Mindfulness also involves acceptance, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them—without believing, for instance, that there’s a “right” or “wrong” way to think or feel in a given moment. When we practice mindfulness, our thoughts tune into what we’re sensing in the present moment rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future.
Motivational Interviewing
Motivational interviewing is a set of patient-centered communication techniques—focused on being empathetic, nonjudgmental, and supportive—which helps individuals express their own reasons for change and take responsibility for their own behavior. Some tools in your motivational interviewing toolkit include asking open- ended questions, reflective listening, sharing the agenda setting, eliciting pros and cons of change, providing information using the elicit-provide-elicit technique, inquiring about the importance and confidence of making a change, and summarizing the conversation.