Individual therapy is a one on one session with you and the counselor. Counseling sessions are a place for you to feel safe, heard, and supported. Life’s challenges may feel like they are preventing you from living the life you want or maybe you feel like you are stuck and just going through the motions. Counseling can help you find your path again. Individual therapy is beneficial for many common issues in our modern lives.
~anxiety
~depression
~Trauma
~PTSD and complex PTSD
~self-image, self-esteem, self-discovery, and self-compassion
~substance use
~relationship issues
~self-harm
~emotional regulation
~Chronic pain or pain associated with trauma
~Social anxiety
~Fears about the future
~ADHD
~Nervous system dysregulation

Yes! These sessions include all the benefits and possibilities of individual counseling. Teen and preteen counseling is individual counseling adjusted to meet the specific needs of adolescents. Teens may be dealing with similar anxieties, concerns, and depressive symptoms as adults. Counseling will be aimed at helping with the specific issues tweens, preteens, and teens may be facing.

Parenting today can feel like navigating challenge after challenge! Counseling sessions focused on parenting can help. What exactly are all the current buzz words around parenting? Giving a label to everything, including parenting style, seems like just another way to feel judged. Counseling can help you learn and understand what is developmentally appropriate for your child’s age, gentle yet firm ways to introduce boundaries to children, and help you be the parent you want to be and the parent your child needs. Parenting sessions can benefit everyone, new parents, growing families, parents of toddlers through teenagers.

Parenting sessions might look like normalizing that kids are kids and the behavior is normal, how you can help the child and yourself manage the behavior, validation, co-regulation skills, boundaries, what gentle parenting is, how to connect with your child and the parent you want to be, self-regulation, and gaining insights on the perspectives of the family as individuals and as a whole.

The good stress of adding a new baby to a family can be difficult to navigate. Counseling can also help address peri/post partum depression, baby blues, birth trauma, preparing for parenting, anxiety, grief, and relational issues. Grief counseling is available to help parents who have experienced a loss at any stage.

Couples may notice they are repeating the same fight, not feeling heard, and wanting to get back to the good things. Couples may be ready to take the next step in their relationship and want preemptive counseling. Counseling sessions can help people in the couple learn to effectively communicate and effectively listen. Couples can learn to fully and safely express their needs in a non-judgemental environment. LGBTQIA+ and poly couples welcome.

~break patterns ~resolve conflicts ~improve communication

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing or EMDR is a specific type of therapy, often used for trauma and complex trauma. EMDR can also include bilateral stimulation to help your body and brain process past or recent traumas. Often, traumatic memories get stored incorrectly in the brain, causing us to relate innocuous events with the danger of the past trauma. EMDR can help your brain re-file these memories correctly, allowing your memory network to store memories appropriately. Once stored as past memories, a path to peaceful healing becomes easier to find.

Walk and talk therapy sessions mean spending time in nature on a walking path at a public park. Time in nature has been shown to decrease levels of stress, depression, and anxiety. Exercise, such as walking, has also been shown to have a positive impact on symptoms of depression and anxiety. Walking in-particular can improve the processing our brains and nervous system are experiencing during therapy.

These sessions are limited to Sundays and need to be requested for advanced approval. Due to being outside, confidentiality may be limited and a Walk and Talk Informed Consent will be required to be signed in advance.

Animal assisted therapy, ATT, has clinically proven benefits. ATT has been shown to have a calming effect, reduce blood pressure, and have a positive impact on the counseling session. The presence of a therapy animal can prompt the body to release some of our happy chemicals like serotonin, prolactin, and oxytocin. These help lower symptoms of depression, sadness, and help support positive mental health. ATT is upon request and availability; it is also not required and not available every day if you would prefer not to engage with ATT at all. Please visit SolaceCounselingAndCoaching.com to visit with Zen the Therapy cat (pictured here).