Developing Relationships

You are the expert on you. You understand how your distress feels and how it is disrupting your life. You know all the things you’ve done to try to alleviate your struggles. You know how you want your life to look and what you value the most. You are the best at knowing what new skills and tools may or may not work for you. Our job is to understand all of this. We are experts at understanding. We are trained in Motivational Interviewing which provides scientific based skills for helping us (and often you) understand all of these things about you while being collaboratively curious and listening empathetically. We also have the humble confidence to try something different if what we are doing is not helping.

Science tells us (and our hearts confirm) that the relationship between you and your therapist is the most important factor in getting desired outcomes in therapy. 

It is critical that you believe your therapist does hear and understand you and that you believe they are the right person to help you. If you don’t believe this is the case, please try a different therapist. See more about getting the right therapist here: www.orcitycounseling.com/finding-a-fit

Science Based Therapy

What about where your expertise runs out? That’s where we will pick up. We will serve as a guide on your journey to wellness. You’ll choose the destination and we’ll be in charge of keeping us focused on that destination (and/or collaborating with you when goals shift). We’ll provide various skills and tools for you to choose from to most effectively get you to where you want to go. These skills and tools will come from Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) since these therapies have the best evidence for most effectively meeting your treatment goals. All therapists at OCC are trained in CBT and/or ACT. 

Some therapists may pull from other evidence based therapies to augment these skills as well (see that information on individual therapists’ bio pages).

A list of all the types of therapies with strong evidence for being effective can be found here: https://div12.org/treatments/

Amazing Therapists Becoming More Amazing

Science also tells us how to be ever more amazing as therapists–something we constantly strive to do. To learn more about this and to see how you can help, go here: www.orcitycounseling.com/improving.