Our counselors provide therapy in Woodbridge, VA

I find that CBT is a great universal approach that can be used to increase a client's awareness of their internal and external experience and how they impact their levels of functioning. Collaboration is also helpful when it is focused on helping them feel empowered to be agents of change for what they need or want in their lives.

I teach the following tools in individual therapy:

• Recognizing emotions on the feelings wheel
• Learning about the cognitive triangle, hierarchy of needs, and stages of life
• Coping skills and strategies for managing and regulating emotions and stress
• How to recognize, challenge, and reframe cognitive distortions, otherwise known as automatic negative thoughts
• Addressing barriers to change by cultivating awareness and mindfulness
• Learning communication skills to be able to express what they feel, how to advocate for their needs with the people in their lives, and how to take appropriate pauses and respond rather than react
• Breathing exercises
• Processing journaling
• The use of calendars, schedules, and routines
• Reality-checking fears and anxieties
• Cognitive restructuring

I can tell a client is making meaningful progress in individual therapy when they are able to come back session after session and confidently report and process their ability to use skills, strategies, and routines they have been working on in treatment. Also, when they are using terminology they learn and demonstrate increased awareness and ability to utilize skills to regulate and manage whatever they are there working on in treatment goals.

I encourage clients to supplement their work in individual therapy with positive, healthy, and effective activities, or what we refer to as pleasant events, utilizing them in their daily lives and establishing routines to help them feel they are making progress towards a life worth living. Also, discussing activities, practices, routines, and habits that provide life satisfaction and help them feel like they are working toward long-term life goals. We will often look at a balanced life wheel that I have been known to share.

I encourage clients to prepare for their first individual session by thinking about the areas of their life they hope treatment can help address what they are experiencing, problems they are facing, and future goals in their life they want to work toward. Create a list of your goals.