General Mental Health Treatment

• Individual Therapy
• Marital, Couples, and Family Counseling
• Group Therapy
• Marriage Preparation & Conflict Resolution

Individual Therapy

Individual counseling or therapy is the cornerstone of most mental health agencies. Individual work is typically the first step many clients choose to gain insight regarding their concerns and struggles. Although the one-on-one dynamic of individual counseling may appear to be simplistic, the success of this work is often contingent on a number of factors. We feel that professional training is vital to the success of individual therapy. In addition, we are also strong advocates of counselors and therapists who have “done their own work,” meaning that our counselors sufficiently understand their own communication patterns, family dynamics, and have dealt with their issues. Therapists who have done their own work create a climate of safety. After all, individual therapy should be about your issues not the issues of the therapist. Individual therapy is a safe and collaborative environment wherein a willing individual and his or her counselor work on a client-driven treatment plan. Journeys Counseling Center is confident that these important elements to individual counseling will be upheld.

Common Reasons Clients Seek Individual Therapy:

• Symptoms of depression or anxiety
• Troubling relationships
• Difficulty with addiction
• Understanding family dynamics
• Recovering from a history of childhood abuse
• Concerns about violent or dangerous relationships
• Recovering from the experience of trauma
• Grief or Loss
• Increasing assertiveness or self-esteem

When a health care professional or treating psychiatrist recommends therapy in addition to medication management

Marital, Couples, and Family Counseling

Often when an individual seeks therapy, his or her presenting concern is related to a relationship disruption. Whenever possible, the Journeys team encourages marital, couples or family sessions to deal with relationship issues directly. The goals of these sessions can include stopping unhealthy communication patterns, learning effective communication strategies, strengthening the bonds of existing relationships, facilitating reconciliation and healing in relationships that have been damaged, and utilizing existing relationships to create healthy change in the family system or unit.

Common Concerns:

• Marital conflict
• Getting stuck in repetitive arguments
• Feeling you have the same fight over and over even when the content is different
• Increasing closeness
• Dealing with a traumatic event in your marriage or family
• Working through family transitions, including but not limited to:
• early marriage and adjustment to in-laws
• having children for the first time
• adjusting to blended family situations
• kids moving out
• adult children living in the house
• grandparents caring for their grandchildren
• adoption

A Journeys counselor is prepared to help you navigate these conflicts and transitions.

Group Therapy

Group therapy is a powerful form of treatment and is often underutilized as a therapeutic approach. Many clients have made the assumption that group is second best when compared to individual work. However, groups offer a dynamic that cannot be replicated in individual work. Having a therapist facilitate a group of peers can be helpful in understanding relationship dynamics, increasing a sense of commonality, and creating a learning environment where clients work together to reach their individual goals. Group therapy can be process oriented, meaning that the group is not based on a particular topic, but rather focuses on relationship dynamics and communication in the moment. Group therapy can also be based on particular topics. Research demonstrates the effectiveness of groups in treating depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and abuse recovery.

Depending on your situation, we may offer a group or class that will help you reach your goals.

Groups:

Professional Mending the Soul groups ("http://www.mendingthesoul.org")

Depression

Anxiety

Grief

Education regarding addiction

Call us to find out what groups we are offering currently.

Marriage Preparation & Conflict Resolution

When clients ask us regarding the timing of marital counseling, we find ourselves emphatically responding that the earlier treatment, the better the outcome. If at all possible, we highly encourage couples who are considering marriage to seek some form of premarital counseling. Many churches and community organizations offer this service. However, we are also pleased to have several team members specializing in premarital counseling. Dr. Forsythe, in particular, enjoys working with couples by giving them the Prepare and Enrich Inventory and working through the results in a short-term (2-3 sessions)

If you are experiencing conflict in your marriage, we highly recommend counseling as an intervention to stop unhealthy communication and potentially damaging patterns. Too often, couples seek therapy as a last resort, only to find that counseling solidifies their decision to end their relationship. Marital therapy works best when both parties are invested in healing and reconciliation. Although our counselors have various approaches to couples treatment, all are invested in helping you identify unhealthy communication, increasing your emotional intimacy through the expression of underlying emotions, and reaching your relationship goals.