Talk Therapy
Often people experiencing depression and anxiety want to know, “How can talking about my problems change anything?” Well, it can’t change the problems but it can change YOU!
Talk therapy can help you change your perspective, your thoughts, and your feelings about the problems. It can change how you think about yourself.
You may have talked with friends and family but they’re too close to your circumstances to provide perspective; or they have tried to “make it all better”; or maybe they don’t say it but you get the impression that they want you to “just snap out of it”. Talking with a person who listens to you about what you’re experiencing can be a relief.
A therapist is trained to listen on many different levels and get underneath the words. S/he can help you recognize your beliefs, thought patterns, self talk and related emotions stored up in the body.
A good therapist can help you take a step back to recognize your self talk.
Feelings are connected to the thoughts you have in any given situation. Certain kinds of talk therapy are especially effective in treating depression and anxiety because they help you uncover and interrupt thought habits that keep you on a thinking-feeling “hamster wheel.” This kind of feeling-thinking has power because it usually goes unquestioned.
In Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) you learn to challenge and change your thinking, which allows your feelings to shift, which in turn affords different self talk, that then makes it possible for you to have choice in your actions. It feels so much better when you can respond rather than re-act to your life circumstances!
At Soul Support Counseling We
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work with you to get to the heart of the matter
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teach you how to respond rather than react to problematic behavior and/or situations
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strategize and practice more adaptive solutions to problems
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try out behavior in the "laboratory" of the therapy session before it's "road-tested" outside