COUNSELING and PSYCHOTHERAPY:
Counseling or psychotherapy can be helpful to anyone who feels they need to make a change in their life, find a new direction, deal with troubling issues, or strengthen their relationships. Glenwood Testing Center offers a comfortable and safe place to explore feelings that seem overwhelming. Our psychologists and counselor serve as objective listeners, and work with individuals (children, adolescents and adults), couples and families to increase their communication skills and problem-solving abilities as well as identify strengths and sort out options. Your counselor will work with you to define your therapy goals and how they can be accomplished in the shortest period of time.
Counseling sessions provide opportunities for people to examine their life experiences, and consider new meanings and understandings, while also establishing new approaches to problem solving. Clients often find counseling sessions helpful because they know they can say all the things they may have been holding back from saying aloud to others! They know they will be listened to, respected, and encouraged by their counselor.
Our model of counseling is short term: educational and solution focused. We understand counseling to be a collaborative experience in which the client and the counselor actively seek to establish new and more effective patterns of thinking, feeling, acting and behaving. We are successful to the extent that the client is able to develop more resilience in coping with problems, a higher level of competence in all areas of life, and the increased confidence that comes from augmented independence and rational thinking.
Through counseling, you will be encouraged to explore aspects of yourself and your problem with your counselor. A variety of approaches may be used to help you gain a deeper understanding of the sources of the difficulties. These insights are then translated into plans for action that you can carry out in your daily life.
Counseling makes sense when you are having trouble coping with a stressful situation or solving a personal problem. It offers emotional support, new perspectives, and help considering possible solutions. So if you are in a lot of distress, or feel overwhelmed by a problem, or feel that you keep repeating the same mistakes, then you might consider seeking counseling.
While we use primarily a cognitive-behavioral therapeutic process, there are a variety of counseling approaches tailored for different problems. In general, counseling is a collaborative process that involves mutual involvement in a confidential context.
Important elements of a counseling relationship include: the development of a trusting and open relationship between client and counselor; honest exploration of feelings, needs, and concerns; efforts to try new solutions to old problems.
Clients have used our counseling services to effectively address a wide range of personal concerns including, but not limited to: psychological issues, such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, or substance abuse, broader personal issues such as self-esteem, communication problems, relationship issues, sexual orientation or family conflict, and crisis situations such as suicidal thoughts, date rape, or significant losses.
|
CHILD AND ADOLESCENT COUNSELING SERVICES:
Children and adolescents often act out their problems to the frustration of their parents and teachers. Glenwood psychologists have 35+ years of experience in properly assessing and diagnosing the underlying problems and in prescribing and initiating the appropriate recommendations or treatment plan that gives the child the best chance to function at his or her optimal level. We are trained and experienced in providing help in the following areas:
• Comprehensive counseling for behavior problems - anxiety, depression, ADD & ADHD, and issues with anger.
• School related problems due to attention issues, authority conflicts, truancy or skipping school, school refusal (school phobia)problems with peers and academic problems.
• Alcohol and drug abuse evaluations and treatment
• Family issues; including problems related to divorce, separation, custody and foster care, as well as attachment issues.
• Issues related to physical and sexual abuse. Providing a safe atmosphere for processing of abuse and education related to appropriate boundaries.
• Counseling to help meet the developmentally correct needs of children.
|
INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING:
Through counseling, individuals are helped to achieve balance and self-sufficiency in their lives. Glenwood therapists provide a variety of services to assist with optimal adjustment and personal growth in the following areas:
• Comprehensive counseling for emotional or psychological distress due to depression, self esteem issues, trauma, anxiety, stress, grief, loss, anger, discouragement and lack of motivation.
• Marital or Relationship Issues rebuilding healthy communication, resolving conflict and improving intimacy
• Family issues related to separation, divorce, co-parenting, blended families, or custody/visitation conflicts
• Specialized counseling for victims and perpetrators of physical, psychological or sexual abuse.
•Problems related to career or workplace frustration.
•Eating disorders
•Substance Abuse
•Sexual orientation or sexual identity issues
•Crisis intervention for suicide attempts, domestic violence, date rape, loss of loved one, criminal victimization or other trauma
|
COUPLES COUNSELING AND MARRIAGE THERAPY
(see Divorce Prevention page on this website):
Marriage or relationship counseling is a special type of mental health service where partners meet face to face with a trained therapist in a private and confidential setting. In this setting the couple expresses their feelings, problems and frustrations about themselves and their partner. Through the skilled interventions of the therapist, the couple is able to identify mutual goals and establish a more positive and satisfying way of interacting. One of the most important aspects of marital counseling involves training couples in the art of effective communication and mutual compromise.
Through counseling, couples are helped to develop greater closeness and resolve difficult situations in their relationship. For special circumstances, Glenwood offers premarital counseling, marital enhancement counseling, couple communication improvement and divorce recovery including assistance with blended families.
Drs. Cushing use couples therapy to teach powerful information and tools for building and maintaining a loving and successful relationship. You can learn how you and your partner can better cope with life’s stresses and become a stronger team. Learn how to renew intimacy - by learning to enhance mutual respect and how to strengthen your love, commitment and friendship, intimacy can be renewed. Investment and committed involvement to the marital counseling process will help each partner gain lasting skills to communicate and resolve conflicts with calm and care and to treat one another much better.
Frequently Asked Questions(FAQ's)about Couples Counseling:
Will marriage-counseling work for my marriage?
Unfortunately, marital therapy does not work in every case. In some situations, marital couples seek counseling after many, many years of marital discord and the pain and hurt that each partner feels runs too deep to be resolved.
However, the good news is that marital counseling does help in the majority of cases. A recent study in a leading consumer magazine clearly indicates that a large majority of couples undergoing marital therapy experience a marked improvement in their relationship. One of the most important findings our therapists at Glenwood have noted is that the sooner the couple gets help with marital problems, the better the chances are for the marriage to experience real improvement. Also, the more committed one or both are to the marriage, the better the odds are that things can be greatly improved and the marriage can get back on track.
How are our children affected by our marital problems?
As might be expected, children in homes where there is a significant level of marital problems pay a high price for their parent's discord. Children in these situations often demonstrate academic as well as behavioral, social and even increased physical (sometimes psycho-somatic) problems as a reaction to their parent's problems. Again, the sooner a couple receives help, the greater the likelihood that the children will be less affected by the parent's problems.
What Should We Do If Our Children Are Experiencing Emotional Problems?
Children and adolescents experience serious emotional distress for a vast number of reasons, including living in families where their parents have serious marital problems. If you sense that your child's emotional conflicts are serious, if their academic performance or behavior at school has changed or if their relationship with their friends has deteriorated, an assessment by our trained child and adolescent psychologists may be necessary. This assessment will help to identify the nature and severity of the problem and what steps are necessary to assist your child to return to the highest level of functioning possible.
|
FAMILY COUNSELING AND PARENTING EDUCATION:
Career stress, family conflict, financial pressures, and problems with children all contribute to difficulties in maintaining harmony within the family. It can be quite hard to manage the demands of daily life. As a result, some people might benefit from help to get back on track by being schooled on the the tools they need to work through the difficulties of life. Family counseling can help parents and kids learn to cope with their unique problems.
Glenwood professionals have been helping families with conflicts and stressors by focusing on improving skills in problem-solving and nurturing children. Family counseling provides guidance on setting limits, conflict resolution, and how to approach behavioral problems including conduct disorders, authority conflicts and how to best gain adult authority or adapt to family change.
Family counseling will be structured to address the most pressing, problematic issues the parents identify. Initial sessions will be held with parents to discuss the most pressing problems. Children will also have their own, "alone time" with the therapist but much of the counseling will be done with all effected family members participating.
Families must be included in helping solve problems of youth. By having families counsel together they can be guided towards solutions that will improve functioning within the family. Problems with children can be more effectively addressed in the context of family discussions. Children and families can do better when they express their ideas to others in a friendly and cooperative atmosphere. In family counseling, families can learn together and gain hope for the future through successful verbal interaction with one another.
Families and individuals do best when they feel they are being listened to and that their points of view are being considered.
Properly functioning families reduce juvenile crime, truancy and destructive behavior. By promoting sound parenting and child rearing strategies and increasing each parent's involvement in the lives of their children, kids flourish and do better in school, with home behavior and in the community. Glenwood's family counseling approach is aimed at strengthening parenting skills and helping children learn improved coping and life skills. Through counseling, families are helped and encouraged to discover and utilize their strengths and resources and to find better ways to communicate with each other.
Some of the areas that can be effectively addressed in family counseling include:
*Premarital and marital issues
*Single parent family issues
*Divorce and the restructuring of families & co-parenting.
*Substance abuse and how it affects others in the family.
*Child rearing questions and conflicts in parenting styles.
*Sexual/gender concerns and the impact on marriage & kids.
*Depression and the manner in which it affects others
*Family violence:how to protect kids and eliminate violence.
*Communication difficulties and how to improve patterns.
*Care of young children and elderly family members.
*Follow-up care after psychiatric hospitalization.
|
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
What is counseling?
Counseling or psychotherapy (they are basically synonymous) provide opportunities for people to examine their life experiences, and consider new meanings and understandings, while also establishing new approaches to problem solving and decision making. Clients often find counseling sessions helpful because they know they can say all the things they may have been holding back from saying aloud to others! They know they will be listened to, respected, and encouraged by their counselor.
Our model of counseling is mostly from the cognitive-behavioral school of psychology. That orientation is based upon the idea that our feelings stem from our thoughts (what we tell ourselves). By learning to be aware of this “self talk”, people can learn to challenge any distortions in thinking, change their perceptions, and gain new, healthier interpretations of previously upsetting situations, people or circumstances. Thus, by learning to think differently, clients are able to change their feelings and behavior.
Our approach to counseling is primarily short term, educational and solution focused. We understand counseling to be a collaborative experience in which the client and the counselor actively seek to establish new and more effective patterns of thinking and feeling. We are successful to the extent that the client is able to develop more resilience in coping with problems, a higher level of competence in all areas of life, and the increased confidence that comes from augmented independence, improved self-esteem and enhanced coping mechanisms.
How does counseling work?
Counseling, most simply stated, is an interaction between a person who is "stuck" in some way and in need of help, and another person who is trained in helping people get "unstuck." The reasons for coming are many, and the counseling strategies employed also vary from counselor to counselor. The one constant is that the counselor focuses all energies on trying to help the student. It doesn't always work, but our feedback from referral sources and current and past clients (many of whom have referred friends and family) suggest that most clients who seek counseling believe that it has been helpful to them. If you feel uncertain about whether counseling is for you, we encourage you to make an initial appointment and discuss any reservations you might have with one of our mental health professionals. There is no obligation to continue.
Counseling sessions are typically scheduled as 45-minute meetings but longer sessions are available upon request if needed. If the client wishes to continue with on-going sessions, these are usually arranged as weekly sessions for whatever period is appropriate. Some clients will seek a one-time session, while others meet with their counselor weekly, bi-weekly or monthly as determined by the client and counselor.
How do I make an appointment?
Appointments may be arranged by calling (815) 968-8133 or by contacting us via e-mail through this website. Our support staff will normally be able to schedule you within a few days from your request. Schedule adjustments are made, however, in emergency situations, so if you need to get in sooner than the time offered to you, tell the receptionist and she can talk with the doctor to get a more timely appointment for you.
What will happen at my first appointment?
You and a psychologist or counselor will discuss the issues that led you to schedule an appointment. The therapist will talk to you about how the Center is best able to provide the kind of help you need. The Glenwood Testing Center is a full service mental health center and, as such, can refer you, in-house, for psychiatric care, psychological, neuro-psychological or educational testing if needed.
Why should I tell a stranger things that I haven't been able to discuss with people closest to me?
The fact that a counselor is not a friend or a family member actually makes it easier for him or her to help you. Unlike friends or family members whose advice is often colored by biases and preconceptions, counselors work to be non-judgmental, objective helpers. Your counselor will be working to understand you, your situation, and your goals.
But isn't it going to be hard for me to talk about what's bothering me with a person I don't even know?
Maybe, especially in the beginning. You may feel anxious or shy, perhaps even a bit self-conscious or weak. Counselors understand that it's normal to feel uncomfortable and cautious during the first meeting, and they try to help by promoting an accepting environment in which you will feel at ease. As you gradually begin to trust your counselor, you'll probably find that you can be more relaxed and open.
But what if I cry or get angry as I talk about my problems?
It's okay to feel and express intense emotions in counseling; in fact, doing so is often one of the most helpful parts of the process. Your counselor's office is a safe place to talk about how you are feeling. And paying close attention to these feelings can also teach you a lot about yourself
Who will know what I talk about in my counseling sessions?
Without your consent, NO ONE! Everything you say in counseling is confidential, unless your counselor is required, by law, to break confidentiality to protect you or somebody else from harm. If you have questions about confidentiality or its limits, your counselor will be able to answer them.
How long and how often are counseling sessions?
Counseling sessions are normally scheduled on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis depending upon the nature of the problem. Sessions are typically 45 minutes long.
How long are most people in counseling at the Center?
With only a few exceptions, clients are normally in counseling for 1 to 6 months. If the nature of the problem suggests that a greater number of sessions will be necessary, longer term, supportive, on-going psychotherapy is available, as needed.
How does the counseling relationship normally end?
Once you feel that the issues that brought you in for counseling are no longer of major concern, you and your counselor will talk about how and when to end counseling. Ideally, the personal awareness that you've gained and the efforts that you've made in establishing a trusting relationship with your counselor should provide an effective model for self-help long after counseling has ended.
What will I get out of coming to counseling?
The benefits of counseling can be invaluable: to be truly understood, to experience trust and openness with someone, and to learn how to counsel and talk to yourself. Seeing a counselor won't make all of your problems magically disappear. But, if you have the desire to understand yourself and to change, then you've taken a powerful step towards that goal.
|
|
