shorttermtherapy

Short-term Therapy

What is Short-term Therapy?

Short-term therapy gets to the heart of the matter, typically,
within 6 to 8 sessions. It is about helping you to relinquish
unpleasant or negative emotions, which are sustained by certain
unidentified thought patterns and core beliefs. When you can get
right to the feelings; when you can identify the “inner
conversation” that you play to yourself over and over it is often a
very rapid process of letting the feelings go.

Between each session, I will give you homework which will
reinforce our sessions together. Short-term therapy is not only
about helping you deal with the problem for which you are
seeking help but also to teach you a powerful self-help tool which
you can use for the rest of your life in virtually any troublesome
situation. (see The Art of Letting Go article). Out of our sessions
together you will:

1) Identify and pinpoint unwanted or troubling emotions in
various areas of your life

2) Identify unfinished emotions from your past

3) Learn to take an accurate "emotional pulse"

4) Learn to take responsibility for your emotions and your ego

5) Learn to evaluate your emotions as either helpful or hurtful to
your peace of mind

6) Discern when to communicate feelings and when to deal with it
"inside"

7) Learn the Art of Letting Go process

8) Learn to replace your negative emotions with new possibilities
of thinking, feeling and perceiving

How Long Does Therapy Usually Last

Typically, the length of therapy is tailored to your unique
situation and individual needs. Some people need a more
protracted relationship with a therapist to address the many
facets of a problem for which they are seeking help. If you are
coming in with your partner or family members, therapy is a place
to open up honest communication, which may take several or
many sessions (see Save Your Relationship program). Others
look to the therapeutic environment for periodic support to get
them through a difficult time while some appreciate on-going
support for their everyday lives and thus use the therapeutic
environment to kind of “check in” with themselves on a weekly or
sometimes monthly basis. Yet others look to a therapist for
some direct answers or help with making a decision, which is
generally a short-term endeavor. Ultimately, I believe, the length
of therapy should be a function of the accomplishment of your
purpose and goals. And the clearer you are with your goals, the
more certain you will be when it is time to end. But even though
the ending of therapy may be goal determined, I believe it is
always helpful to set a flexible time frame when therapy will be
over. This insures that therapy is not an open-ended process.
And my goal is to make myself unnecessary in your life in the
least amount of time.

What Brings People Into Therapy?

While each person is unique, there are two basic perspectives on
why people seek help. The first view is situational. For example,
you are struggling with a problem, a difficulty, or a relationship.
The problem seems to be “out there” in your external world or
perhaps "between" you and another as in a marriage or
relationship. Perhaps it has to do with somebody’s undesirable
behavior, or you find yourself in a difficult situation, or you are
uncertain about “what to do” about a particular circumstance.
Thus you might seek out the services of a professional to help
you solve the problem and determine your choices.

Another way of looking at your motivation is that you are
experiencing an unpleasant feeling or emotion. The problem is
more “in here”. You are struggling with an inner experience or
negative behavior that affects your happiness and well-being.
Anger, depression, sadness, anxiety, resentment, hurt, loss and
so on are all examples of undesirable feelings. Overeating,
substance use or poor performance on a job or at school are
examples of undesirable behavior. It is useful to recognize that
undesirable behavior and emotions often go hand in hand.
Negative emotions fuel negative behavior. And trying to change a
behavior without dealing with the underlying emotions often does
not work (as in new year’s resolutions) because it does not get
to the root of the problem.

Whether you are coming in with a situation or undesirable feeling
or behavior, you may eventually discover that the root of many
of your problems is really centered on how you feel about
yourself. This is how many problems are often reframed in
therapy anyway, that is, to help you see that “the problem” isn’t
so much “out there” but rather in what you are doing to, and
feeling about, yourself. When the problem is “out there” or when
it is about undesirable behavior either in yourself or another you
often find yourself helpless to deal with it because you are not
getting to the root cause. Sooner or later you realize that “trying
to change” the undesirable (either in yourself or in others) often
brings about the opposite result--no change at all (see article on
Getting the Most out of Therapy). If you can grasp the notion
that the problem is within you; that your problem is your own
emotional response and negative thinking; that it is the feelings
that you hold about yourself or others, then maybe short-term
therapy is all that you need.

Taking the First Step

If you would like to set an appointment or if you have any
questions call (877-372-8784) or email me. The next step will be
to download the Intake Questionnaire which will give me an
overview of your situation and background. We will go over this
information in more detail during our first session, which is
primarily meant for information gathering and to establish goals
for therapy. During this first session we will identify the emotions
and major areas of your life that will be the focus of our work.