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ABOUT STILLWATERS COUNSELING


Individuals       Couples      Groups        Christian Counseling        Children              Teens    

Depression                  Anxiety                 Trauma                Low Self-Esteem 



Cognitive Behavior Therapy

is a form of psychotherapy that focuses on your relationship between thoughts, emotions, and behavior. Specifically, since your thoughts create your emotions, which then drive behavior affecting your mental health and can cause depression.


This type of clinical therapy works by learning to identify and correct a negative thought that influences a certain emotion bringing on anxiety and depression. 

Play Therapy / Sand Tray

What is play therapy used for?

The primary goal of play therapy is to help children who might struggle with expressing themselves or their emotions to express themselves through play. A play therapist will guide a person through play therapy in a free and safe environment where they feel most comfortable expressing themselves.  


Sandplay therapy is a nonverbal, therapeutic intervention that makes use of a sandbox, toy figures, and sometimes water, to create scenes of miniature worlds that reflect a person’s inner thoughts, struggles, and concerns. This form of play therapy is practiced along with talk therapy, using the sandbox and figures as communication tools.  Sandplay therapy is often used with those who have suffered some form of trauma, neglect, or abuse. Although sandplay is especially well suited for working with young children, who often cannot express their inner feelings in words, it is also a technique that is helpful for some teens and adults who are having trouble expressing themselves and who may have suffered some form of severe trauma.

Dialectical Therapy

is similar to CBT in clinical practice, but it focuses on the way patients’ emotions are connected to thoughts and behavior rather than the other way around.

DBT also incorporates the concepts of acceptance and mindfulness making it easier to let go of things you cannot control that lead to depression. Then learning to accept things that are unpleasant or upsetting, and how to live peacefully with yourself and your environment alleviating anxiety and depression.

Acceptance 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 issues and 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.


ACT has been used effectively to help treat workplace stress, test anxiety, social anxiety disorder, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and psychosis.  

Interpersonal Therapy (IPT)

is a time-limited, focused, evidence-based approach to treat mood disorders. The main goal of IPT is to improve the quality of a client’s interpersonal relationships and social functioning to help reduce their distress. IPT provides strategies to resolve problems within four key areas.

First, it addresses interpersonal deficits, including social isolation or involvement in unfulfilling relationships. Second, it can help patients manage unresolved grief—if the onset of distress is linked to the death of a loved one, either recent or past. Third, IPT can help with difficult life transitions like retirement, divorce, or moving to another city. Fourth, IPT is recommended for dealing with interpersonal disputes that emerge from conflicting expectations between partners, family members, close friends, or coworkers.


IPT was originally developed to treat major depressive disorder. It’s also used effectively to treat eating disorders, perinatal depression, drug and alcohol addiction, dysthymia, and other mood disorders—including bipolar disorder. IPT differs from other traditional psychodynamic approaches in that it examines current rather than past relationships, and recognizes—but does not focus on—internal conflicts.   The practice differs from cognitive and behavioral therapy approaches because it addresses maladaptive thoughts and behaviors only as they apply to interpersonal relationships. IPT aims to change relationship patterns rather than the associated depressive symptoms, as well as target relationship difficulties that exacerbate these symptoms. IPT is less directive than cognitive-behavioral approaches—focusing on the patient’s specified target areas without dwelling on his or her personality traits.

Other Techniques


Self-Esteem Building


Solution-Focused


EMDR


Puppetry


Music Therapy


Narrative Therapy

What our customers are saying

“I can’t say enough about my experience with my counselor, Sharon Smith. Over the past years Ms. Sharon Smith and I have continuously worked on meditation practices, multiple techniques used to conquer my anxiety, and adding in EMDR, a new technique to me but very helpful. Sharon Smith has been a huge part in helping me come out from one of the darkest experiences I have gone through thus far. She is meticulous in her work, and her compassion for her patients has been so meaningful to my life. I love that she is always learning new techniques and she makes me comfortable in being freely open with my feelings in our sessions.”

Client - Stillwaters Counseling

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