Anxiety

While experiencing occasional anxiety is a normal reaction to life stressors, people with too much anxiety can experience intense feelings of tension, worry, troubling thoughts, and physical reactions that interfere with daily living and coping with life stressors.

Depression

Most people feel sad or low at some point in their lives, but persistent sadness can lead to depression. There are many reasons that can contribute to depression, such as trauma, loss, life changes, and biological changes. Recognizing the symptoms is the first step in healing.

Trauma

Trauma has a ripple effect on an individual’s mental health and relationships. Untreated trauma can make coping with life stressors more difficult, and sometimes, seem impossible. Often, we are left with feeling stuck and unable to cope, and life becomes more about surviving than thriving. Our therapists utilize a variety of modalities to better help you heal from trauma. These modalities might include EMDR, DBT/CBT, AIR networking, Somatic Experiencing, polyvagal therapy, and other effective trauma therapies.

Relational Distress

Relationships can be complex and multi-layered. Even healthy, well-meaning individuals can find themselves “stuck” and unable to resolve relationship problems themselves. Issues can be the result of something missing that is needed such as accountability or something present that is a problem such as unregulated emotion or addiction. Problems are not always “50-50”. Sometimes one person can dominate or block or withdraw from a relationship for a number of reasons, including keeping things from getting worse. If you are experiencing relational distress, and despite your best efforts it is not getting better, a meeting with a trained professional can often help. Even if only one party is willing to come at first, help and change can still be possible. There is help for healing, repair, and restructuring of relationships, with the hope that relationships can become less about surviving and more about connecting, growing, and sharing.

Mental Health & Spiritual Development

Humans are physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual beings. These aspects of being human are interconnected and affect how we connect with others. Psychology was originally called the "study of the soul.” We at Arden Woods try to always be aware of the spiritual dimension of our clients. Faith foundations can be a powerful resource for clients that therapy can use and build upon. Conversely, the faith journey for some can be a painful, even damaging legacy that needs healing and repair. Even those without a particular religious background are still considered to have a spiritual life. We want to understand your meaning of spirituality if you choose to explore it in therapy. If desired, the spirituality of clients is one of the many areas we can explore for strength, grieving, healing, and growing. We feel it is ethical and respectful to honor whatever spiritual perspective or terminology clients bring to the therapy room. This respect does not exclude occasionally challenging distorted thinking or the misuse of religious systems that harm and divide.

Abuse

Abuse of any kind can damage one's mental health, relationships, and/or one's view of self and the world. It can be challenging for clients and therapists to navigate this delicate topic and balance perception and reality, self-protection and boundaries, accountability and releasing, resilience and escape, and even legal implications.

We recognize there are two categories of abuse that we confront in our practice. One that is current and ongoing, and the other is historical abuse that has ended. Historical abuse that has happened in years past can continue to have a profound effect on your current living. We have experienced therapists who are trained and skilled at helping clients restore their identity and well-being in the aftermath of current, past, and/or childhood trauma and abuse.

Another type of abuse is that which is currently ongoing in relationships, which adds another dimension of safety and prevention in addition to the healing and recovery process. We do not believe in the concept that "it always takes two" or that problems are always 50-50, and sadly, the label of abuser can also be a very damaging form. We do not believe that finding the reasons behind the cause of abuse is as important as stopping and healing the effects of abuse, for both victim and abuser. Nor do we find it helpful to try to assess the actual severity of the abusive behavior. Rather, we try to assess and address the depth or breadth of the aftereffects, and work to empower you in your current situation. As therapists our role is to support, empower, heal, and restore your health to help you find your optimal place resolution within you.

Grief Counseling

The expression of grief is a common human response to loss, however, it does not qualify as a mental health diagnosis. It is a natural progression involving emotional, physical, and spiritual reactions to the loss of something or someone that held significant importance in our lives. Grief is an integral part of existence and can manifest in several ways, such as sadness, anger, guilt, confusion, and loneliness. Ambiguous loss is a particular kind of grief that arises from confusion or uncertainty about the loss, such as when a loved one is missing, or when someone is physically present but emotionally unavailable. Ambiguous loss is one of the most anxiety-inducing losses that an individual can experience since it generates a sense of perplexity and uncertainty, making it difficult to process and move on. Those who are grappling with grief or ambiguous loss may benefit from seeking assistance from a licensed therapist, who can provide guidance, support, and coping skills to help you deal with these difficult emotions and experiences, including just having someone be present with you in your grief.

Premarital Counseling

The focus for a couple planning on marriage is often the wedding–an expense driven day. This often becomes a distant memory. We provide premarital counseling to help couples explore and invest in their marriage through a compelling and uplifting look at the marriage journey called 2 4 Keeps. Using an assessment called Prepare, we look together at the couple’s strengths and growth areas, along with exploring family of origin, family systems, faith, handling life transitions, and the expectations held by every individual entering marriage. 

Begin your journey into marriage as prepared as you can possibly be for a lifetime together! We will partner with you in providing pre-engagement or premarital counseling to propel you into healthy awareness in areas you never imagined were significant to your growing intimacy and a lifetime relationship.

Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are severe illnesses that can have a significant impact on one's overall health, both physically and psychologically. These disorders alter the way people consume and absorb food and may manifest through rigid rituals and routines surrounding food and exercise, feelings of guilt and shame associated with eating, an obsession with food, weight, and negative body image. Additionally, people with eating disorders may experience a sense of loss of control in their lives. These symptoms can seriously impair physical health and social functioning, leading to emotional and spiritual distress. 

Professional intervention may be necessary for individuals with eating disorders to overcome these challenges. A therapist can assist in identifying the root causes of disordered eating, developing normative eating habits, and managing negative thoughts and emotions related to food and body image. Seeking help as soon as possible is critical for individuals with eating disorders, as untreated conditions can result in severe health consequences. Treatment typically involves a combination of therapies, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, nutrition counseling, and medication management, and may include family members or loved ones in the treatment process.

Stress Management

Stress is a normal part of our daily living. It can be motivating and empowering or overwhelming and debilitating. The combination of the amount of threat and our ability to function with it, determines how it can affect us. There are many factors which impact our level of stress, including what is happening externally and what it creates internally. Stress can impact us mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. How one responds to stress is different for everyone, depending upon one’s physiological, emotional and/or psychological state. When we begin to feel overwhelmed, and we can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, then our ability to cope with stress becomes difficult to manage.  Whether our stress is real or imagined, it impacts us physically, and can make it more difficult for us to manage our daily lives over time. Eventually, our systems can shut down, and we can lose hope of ever overcoming stress, often leaving us to feel like failures. Whether you are struggling with parenting, school, work, personal relationships, and/or physical illness, our therapists can help you learn skills to better cope with stress, making daily life more like living, rather than just surviving.

ADHD Therapy & Assessment

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a diagnosis that affects many individuals and families, with recent statistics indicating that over 4% of adults and almost 10% of children have at some point been diagnosed. Signs of ADHD can include elements of both inattention and impulsivity/hyperactivity. An ADHD diagnosis can fall into three types: predominantly inattentive, predominantly hyperactive, or combined type.

In children, features of inattention can include failure to pay attention to details, distractibility and difficulty sustaining attention on tasks, not listening when being spoken to, not following through on instructions, difficulty with organization in tasks or activities, avoidance of tasks that require sustained mental effort, frequently losing or misplacing items, and forgetfulness. Features of impulsivity/hyperactivity can include fidgeting and excessive movement, difficulty remaining seated, inappropriate running or climbing, inability to partake in quiet activities, talking excessively and blurting answers, impatience and difficulty waiting for turns, and interrupting others.

In adults, some of these features may be somewhat less pronounced or dramatic and more subtle, yet still functionally disruptive.

If you are questioning the possibility of an ADHD condition, a formal assessment can be helpful in bringing further diagnostic clarity and giving direction for treatment efforts. An ADHD assessment generally includes a clinical interview in which a functional history is gathered, various standardized questionnaires depending on the age of the individual, and standardized performance tests measuring sustained attention and response inhibition. Depending again on the age of the individual, responses to standardized questionnaires may be sought from parents, teachers, and the individual themselves. The resulting assessment summary and conclusions can then also be provided to schools, therapists, and physicians who may be involved in assisting the individual in achieving better management of symptoms and fuller expression of gifts and abilities.