Our fundamental approach to therapy is active, compassionate and genuine. Whatever challenges you are experiencing, we will listen closely and work with you to develop a treatment plan that’s right for you.
Individual treatment approaches are developed in a collaborative manner between you and your therapist/coach, following an assessment process. Therapeutic tools, techniques and strategies are designed to be flexible and transferable so you can use them effectively while in therapy and after you have completed treatment.
Therapy and Goal Setting
For most problems, therapy involves 10-20 hour sessions of psychotherapy/coaching. At the beginning of treatment, you will discuss your current problems and treatment goals. Once the goals are established, you will engage in activities that will help you understand your emotions, challenge your assumptions and beliefs and experiment with new thinking process and new behaviours.
We will make an action plan with you and will continually revise and evaluate both the process and progress of plan. Coming to therapy once a week is a great first step however, you will need to do work between sessions to help you improve. The hard work begins at home when you practice implementing real change.
If you are ready to make changes in your life, then Hanada promises to do everything she can to help you achieve your goals, whatever they may be.
Counselling Methods
Each client and client situation is unique and as such my approach to therapy will differ depending on the needs of the client and what we agree may be helpful.
The following are some of the theories and approaches that our team uses and finds effective:
- Solution Focused Counselling focuses on determining and achieving the client’s vision for solutions by using strategies individuals’ have previously used to solve previous problems, what can be changed and what other possibilities exist.
- Trauma-Informed Therapy is a specific approach to therapy that recognizes and emphasizes understanding of how the traumatic experiences impacts an individual’s mental, behavioural, emotional and physical well-being. The focus of trauma-informed therapy is to offer skills and strategies that can assist an individual in better understanding, coping with, processing emotions and memories related directly to the traumatic experiences.
- Unified Protocol focuses on helping individuals understand and recognize their emotions and respond to their negative emotions in a more adaptive ways thereby, reducing the intensity and frequency of negative emotions.
- Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) helps individuals learn and use new skills and strategies to improve their live circumstances. Individuals are taught two opposite strategies: acceptance (i.e., that their experiences and behaviours are valid), and change (i.e., that they have to make positive changes to manage emotions and move forward). Four skills are taught: mindfulness; distress tolerance; interpersonal effectiveness; and emotional regulation.
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) a structured therapy that promotes awareness of the interconnection of thinking patterns, emotions and behaviours.
- Relaxation Techniques include deep breathing, guided imagery, progressive muscle relaxation, self soothing and self awareness.