Gender-Affirming Therapy

All providers at New Story are queer-friendly and work with transgender, gender queer, and/or gender fluid individuals. This may involve referral for hormone therapy and/or gender affirming surgeries, addressing the coming out process, navigating name and gender changes, healing from misnaming/mis- gendering, and ultimately accepting and integrating one’s gender into their concept of self. This process may also include learning to self-advocate and face the challenges of oppression, marginalization, underrepresentation, and safety in the community.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

EMDR is an evidence-based therapy that utilizes bilateral stimulation (BLS) on the body to effectively heal from past traumas and reduce future fears. EMDR is a therapy often used with clients who struggle with low self-worth, a depressed mood, high anxiety, and/or post-traumatic stress. We learn to think poorly about ourselves when we’ve experienced social isolation or exclusion, hyper-criticism, abuse, neglect, or other forms of trauma. Reprocessing these past traumas with EMDR alleviates the symptoms of distress we experience and helps us achieve a better self image, maintain healthier relationships, and have a better outlook on life.

What is BLS and how does it work? Bilateral stimulation (BLS) is comparable to the process your brain engages in during your REM (rapid eye movement) cycle of sleep. During REM cycle, your body is stimulating both left and right hemispheres of the brain simultaneously to produce a dynamic sleep cycle that helps you reprocess experiences of your day. Similarly, BLS helps you reprocess old and harmful experiences from your past that your brain (and body) haven’t been able to let go of in a productive or healthy way.

To learn more about EMDR, visit:

https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/

Relational-Cultural Therapy

RCT is a newer therapeutic approach that was developed in the 1970s by women psychologists and psychiatrists to address gaps in current psychology theories that lacked feminist principles and accounting for the unique experiences, needs, and skills of a diverse clientele. RCT emphasizes the need for mutual power and relational mattering between the client and therapist. RCT brings awareness to the impact of culture, gender, and other differences that impact a sense of safety and understanding within the therapeutic relationship. Core focuses in RCT include building desire, energy, self awareness, awareness of others, self-worth, and relational connection.

Internal Family Systems

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an approach to psychotherapy that identifies and addresses multiple sub personalities or families within each person’s mental system. Everyone has parts, and all part are inherently good, but negative experiences can cause a disruption in the internal balance our system of sub-personalities. IFS focuses on healing the wounded parts and restoring mental balance and harmony within oneself.

IFS therapy is an evidence based approach that has been shown to be effective for treating a variety of conditions and their symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, phobias, panic, and physical health conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, as well as improving general functioning and well-being.

Source: psychologytoday.com

Animal Assisted Therapy

Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) incorporates human-animal interactions into a counseling process as a part of the mental health treatment. It is considered an additional form of treatment to an existing therapy relationship that is guided by a licensed professional who is certified in AAT and working with a certified therapy animal. Benefits of AAT can include stress and anxiety reduction, emotional regulation, social/emotional bonding and development, increased self-esteem, improved communication, increased engagement and cooperation, enhanced grief and loss processing, and decreased emotional and behavioral problems.

Bailey is an 8-year-old black Labrador retriever. She lives at home with Ally and her family. Her favorite things are playing fetch, any sort of attention, and treats. She has a gentle demeanor and can sometimes take time to warm up to someone upon first introduction, just like many humans do. She will appreciate sitting next to you and at your feet! Bailey completed her AAT training with Pet Partners and is a registered Therapy Animal.

Cognitive processing therapy (CPT)

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is a specific type of cognitive behavioral therapy that has been effective in reducing symptoms of PTSD that have developed after experiencing a variety of traumatic events including child abuse, combat, rape, and natural disasters.

CPT helps patients learn how to challenge and modify unhelpful beliefs related to the trauma. In so doing, one creates a new understanding of the traumatic event so that it reduces its ongoing negative effects on current life.

Prolonged Exposure

Prolonged Exposure is an intervention strategy commonly used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help individuals confront fears. Prolonged Exposure therapy is a specific type of cognitive behavioral therapy that teaches individuals to gradually approach trauma related memories, feelings, and situations.

Most people want to avoid anything that reminds them of the trauma they experienced but doing so reinforces their fear. By facing what has been avoided, a person can decrease symptoms of PTSD by actively learning that the trauma-related memories and cues are not dangerous and do not need to be avoided.

Imagery Rehearsal Therapy

Following distress, it is normal to experience nightmares. It is the brain’s way of processing and integrating these intense emotions and stimuli that were part of the experience. Neural pathways form to help the sleep center of the brain process the emotions. If the nightmare persists past approximately 30 days, it could mean normal processing has not occurred, and the nightmare has become stuck in the sleep center.

Imagery Rehearsal Therapy helps to get the nightmare and associated distressing emotions unstuck by rescripting the narrative of the nightmare. Integrating a different narrative allows a new pathway to form from the frontal lobes of the brain and intersect with the nightmare pathway, which will work to disrupt or weaken it.

Somatic Experiencing® Method

The Somatic Experiencing® method is a body-oriented approach to the healing of trauma and other stress disorders. The SE™ approach releases traumatic shock and restores connection, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma.

The client will become more aware of body sensations and signals, which promotes consciousness of where they may be “stuck” in the fight, flight, or freeze responses. The clinician will then gently guide clients to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions, building their capacity for containment, resiliency, and healing.

Source: somaticexperiencing.com

Internal Family Systems

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an approach to psychotherapy that identifies and addresses multiple sub personalities or families within each person’s mental system. Everyone has parts, and all part are inherently good, but negative experiences can cause a disruption in the internal balance our system of sub-personalities. IFS focuses on healing the wounded parts and restoring mental balance and harmony within oneself.

IFS therapy is an evidence based approach that has been shown to be effective for treating a variety of conditions and their symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, phobias, panic, and physical health conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, as well as improving general functioning and well-being.

Source: psychologytoday.com

Emotional Freedom Techniques

EFT stands for the Emotional Freedom Techniques. It has also come to be commonly referred to as “tapping” as the techniques involve a gentle tapping or percussion of the fingertips on the skin. EFT is a form of psychological acupressure, based on the same energy meridians used in traditional acupuncture to treat physical and emotional ailments for over 5,000 years, but without the invasiveness of needles. Instead, simple tapping with the fingertips is used to input kinetic energy onto specific meridians on the head and chest while you think about your specific problem — whether it is a traumatic event, an addiction, pain, etc. — and voice positive affirmations. This combination of tapping the energy meridians and voicing positive affirmation works to clear the “short-circuit” — the emotional block — from your body’s bioenergy system, thus restoring your mind and body’s balance, which is essential for optimal health and the healing of physical disease.

EFT is often used to change negative feelings, reduce distressing and/or self limiting thoughts, to alter repetitive unwanted behaviors and is even effective for working with and resolving traumatic memories. It is also commonly used to create positive emotional states, achieve desired goals and attain higher states of health, well-being and resilience.

Source: efttappingtraining.com

Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) is an evidence-based treatment for children and adolescents impacted by trauma and their parents or caregivers. Research shows that TF-CBT successfully resolves a broad array of emotional and behavioral difficulties associated with single, multiple and complex trauma experiences. This is the official TF-CBT National Therapist Certification Program, in which clinicians can become certified in the TF-CBT treatment model.

Source: tfcbt.org

Motivational Interviewing

MI is a therapeutic approach that helps address ambivalence or a feeling of being stuck in one’s life. The MI therapist takes a nonjudgmental approach with the client and helps them discover their goals for change (or to not change) in away that is empowering, respectful, and empathetic. A strong focus is to help the client find clarity in their values and worldview as a helpful guide to finding a self driven path. The MI therapist works to help build the client’s confidence, insight, and sense of certainty without imposing instruction, pressure, or unsolicited advice on the client.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is an action oriented approach to psychotherapy that stems from traditional behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Clients learn to stop avoiding, denying, and struggling with their inner emotions and, instead, accept that these deeper feelings are appropriate responses to certain situations that should not prevent them from moving forward in their lives. With this understanding, clients begin to accept their hardships and commit to making necessary changes in their behavior, regardless of what is going on in their lives and how they feel about it.

Source: psychologytoday.com

Cognitive and Behavioral Therapy

CBT is based on several core principles, including:
1. Psychological problems are based, in part, on faulty or unhelpful ways of thinking.
2. Psychological problems are based, in part, on learned patterns of unhelpful behavior.
3. People suffering from psychological problems can learn better ways of coping with them, thereby relieving their symptoms and becoming more effective in their lives.
CBT treatment usually involves efforts to change thinking patterns. These strategies might include:
1. Learning to recognize one’s distortions in thinking that are creating problems, and then to reevaluate them in light of reality.
2. Gaining a better understanding of the behavior and motivation of others.
3. Using problem-solving skills to cope with difficult situations.
4. Learning to develop a greater sense of confidence in one’s own abilities

Source: APA.org

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) provides clients with new skills to manage painful emotions and decrease conflict in relationships. DBT specifically focuses on providing therapeutic skills in four key areas. First, mindfulness focuses on improving an individual’s ability to accept and be present in the current moment. Second, distress tolerance is geared toward increasing a person’s tolerance of negative emotion, rather than trying to escape from it. Third, emotion regulation covers strategies to manage and change intense emotions that are causing problems in a person’s life. Fourth, interpersonal effectiveness consists of techniques that allow a person to communicate with others in a way that is assertive, maintains self-respect, and strengthens relationships.

Source: psychologytoday.com