Mindful Growth | Positive Change

A Purposeful Path's Goal:  To help you find the change you desire in your life.

What's the process for beginning therapy?

1) Check around to find your best fit for a therapist.  There are MANY options, so it's important to feel comfortable with the person you're starting therapy with; this is why A Purposeful Path offers free phone consultations.  
2) Intake Appointment: There is intake paperwork to be completed, which will be emailed to you prior to the intake appointment, via an Electronic Medical Record. You will be provided a link to securely log into your client portal. The intake appointment begins treatment planning: we will begin to review your biopsychosocial history and discuss the current or past events precipitating beginning psychotherapy.
3) Treatment Planning: We will determine the best therapeutic approach/approaches to assist in creating the desired change you are wanting in life right now.  Therapeutic goals are established, and corresponding skills/techniques/strategies will be taught  AND therapeutic homework is assigned based on the therapeutic goals.  
4) Ongoing Therapeutic Sessions: Frequency and duration are determined with your therapist.  Frequency: typically closer together with initial 4-6 sessions (weekly is ideal).  As therapy progresses (when you are beginning to feel better), frequency typically begins to space out.  Duration: therapeutic sessions are 45 minutes, but double sessions may be requested.  Some clients feel that they need additional time in session to process through their current and past events or experiences; double sessions are double the time (90 minutes).  
5) Therapeutic Termination: At some point, the therapeutic goals are reached!  You will feel better, and will have lots of therapeutic skills/techniques/strategies you've learned that you will continue using!  Termination is a professional term, identified from psychotherapeutic guidelines set forth by our professional standards.  Just because termination is completed, doesn't mean it's over!  Successful therapy is identified by having built a strong therapeutic relationship between client and therapist where client may contact the therapist again if the she/he is experiencing problems in the future.  

What type of therapy and counseling is offered?

At A Purposeful Path, we believe in evidence-based counseling methods (EBCM).  The definition of EBCM is:

"The conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of the individual patient. It means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research" (Dr. David Sackett , 1996). This means we strive to use counseling techniques that have been shown to produce change.

Some of the types of evidence-based practices used include:

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)

Based on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn), MBCT works to cultivate mindfulness while using strategies from cognitive therapy to connect thinking and its resulting impact on feeling.  Originally developed for the treatment of depression, MBCT can be effectively used for many mental health conditions. 

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) 

This type of therapy uses four core modules to build strategies for managing internal and external challenges:  Distress Tolerance, Mindfulness, Emotional Regulation, Interpersonal Effectiveness.   When these modules are combined, DBT provides many counseling options to create an individualized strategy for handling life. Learn more about Dialectical Behavior Therapy.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)

REBT is an action-oriented counseling method that teaches individuals to identify, challenge, and replace their self-defeating thoughts and beliefs with healthier thoughts that promote emotional well-being and goal achievement. Learn more about Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy from the Albert Ellis Institute website. 

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

ACT is a psychological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies, together with commitment and behavior change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility means contacting the present moment fully as a conscious human being, and based on what the situation affords, changing or persisting in behavior in the service of chosen values.” Learn more about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. 

Learn how evidence-based practices can help you | Call or email today! | 970.682.8844 | Info@apurposefulpath.com