Tag: change

Working with teens is very eye opening and for me it is incredibly rewarding. Teens bring so much intelligence and youthful spirit into my every day counseling experience. When teens come into the practice, they are usually coming in to please their parents because their parents want their teen to either behave differently or work on an issue that is causing conflict. On top of this, the teen often does not even know why they are acting in the way that they are. That is why the form of therapy I use with teens is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This form of therapy focuses on why a specific behavior is happening and what is happening in the brain that creates this reaction/response/behavior.

            When a reaction/response/behavior is happening there is a process that has occurred that has created this response. This starts with an event. An event happens that triggers cer ...

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Do you procrastinate? Do you find it difficult to start or complete a project? Maybe you are a frustrated perfectionist. Some people were raised in a home where perfectionism was the ideal to shoot for. In reality, perfectionism can be a road block to accomplishing goals, completing tasks or getting needs met.

 

Our desire or driving need to be perfect or do a job perfectly can shut down our ability to move forward and leave us feeling unmotivated and paralyzed. It can prevent us from sharing pain with a trusted friend or calling the doctor. If there is not enough time or energy to do a job perfectly, we may feel frustrated and leave the job undone.

 

There have been many times where I did not even attempt to go after a goal for fear of failing. The thoughts running through my mind sounded like…

 

“What if I fail?”

“What will people think of me?” or,

...

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I love using props in my sessions as a way to help clients to understand where they are currently, but also as a way for them to understand how they may be able to navigate through their situation. One of these props helps me illustrate how we allow our focus to get easily diverted and how we get off our intended course or goal.

In my office, a windshield with a steering wheel and a rearview mirror are mounted to a wall.  I have the client sit down and look out the windshield. Challenging them to engage their imagination, I ask them to describe the road that they see in front of them.  Is it a smooth highway? A dirty back road full of potholes? Or are they off on a beaten path? Once they have this image in their mind, I then ask them to decide where they want to go. Do they want to change the direction they are headed and what would a new destination look like. This leads us into a conversation on goals and the process of counselin ...

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