TREATMENT APPROACHES

 

1) COGNITIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY (CBT)

Cognitive Behavior Therapy
(CBT) is a psychotherapeutic model that is more present-centered and future focused than traditional therapies. 

It is aimed at influencing disturbed emotions and behaviors that are not helpful by identifying and modifying irrational or maladaptive thoughts, assumptions and beliefs; replacing them with more realistic and self-helping alternatives. As such, CBT is a cognitive, affective and behavioral approach to healing that is used with individuals and groups.

CBT is an umbrella term for many different therapies that share many common elements. While similar views have existed for millennia, the earliest form of Cognitive Behavior Therapy was developed by Albert Ellis  and Aaron T. Beck. 

Goal:
To enable clients to think and act more rationally.

Method: Clients identify irrational beliefs and assumptions that are causing or maintaining disturbances and work toward correcting them.

2) REALITY THERAPY:
Reality Therapy a psycho-educational brand of CBT, similar in many ways to other forms of education, tutoring or coaching.  It purports that thinking is at the core of human experience and that thoughts are vital tools in creating the reality we experience.

Thoughts create our emotional states; affect our bodies, and therefore, our health. Thoughts also affect our responses to life, our relationships and determine the choices we make. Hence, various studies show that thinking leads to feelings, feelings to behaviors and behaviors impact results.

Goal: Enabling clients to think optimistically as a basis for rational behavior.

Method: Clients identify particular types of errors enshrouded in pessimistic thinking and work at creating optimism.

3)  AFROTHERAPY (AT):
Afrotherapy is a modified version of Reality Therapy. As a developmental and transformational process, it is culturally specific, not universal. Based on the multi-cultural premise that a group must recognize and affirm itself before it is able to share and appreciate the difference in others, AT emphasizes cultural identity and reflection on history as spiritual practices.

AT affirms that treatment of African Americans would be incomplete without an examination of their African past. This background knowledge is relevant to psychotherapy since understanding the past is vital to the healing process.

Pain, like fire, has the power to destroy or transform. AT, therefore, teaches clients how to transcend feelings of shame and humiliation about their past while creating the optimism necessary for using their history, including the experience of slavery, as a catalyst for recovery and transformation.

Goal: 
To help clients think optimistically.
Method: 
Clients identify particular types of cognitive errors concealed in pessimistic thinking as a basis for cognitive restructuring and work at creating optimism.
 
4) TREATMENT MODALITIES:
We are licensed clinical psychotherapists specializing in work with children, adolescents and adults. Our focus is on short-term therapy, 15 -20 sessions in duration depending on consumers’ diagnosis, level of motivation to change and consistency with treatment. Sessions are interactive and move quickly. We give homework assignments and feedback.