Top 5 Things You Should Know About Couples Therapy

Couples therapy is often viewed as the last attempt for a couple to reconcile differences. In fact, couples therapy is a highly effective proactive strategy to mitigate the problems experienced by a couple. As with individual adult therapy, couples therapy tries to address issues by discussing the issues candidly. The big difference is unlike individual therapy, couples therapy addresses the needs, goals, and desires of two clients involved in an intimate relationship.

Before you commit to working out your issues in a therapy setting, you should know the top five things about couples therapy.

Couples Counselors Do Not Save Relationships

One of the misconceptions couples share concerning therapy is they believe a couples counselor offers the solutions to save their relationships. If both partners do not make the effort to find ways to improve their relationship, nothing a couples counselor does can save what is destined to fail. A couples therapist offers advice, as well as educates couples, but it is up to both partners to be willing to work hard to fix what appears to be intractable problems.

Be Ready for a Significant Amount of Work Outside of Sessions

Couples therapy is not an event that crosses an hour a week off your busy schedule. Although you should come away from therapy sessions with the foundational skills to improve your relationship, you must work on those skills for the rest of the week. Couples therapy does not last forever, which means if one or both partners ignore the work required outside of sessions, you might find yourselves back at square one living in a disintegrating relationship.

Couples therapy offers a highly structured environment for developing conflict resolution skills, while a home environment provides a more realistic place to practice newly learned skills in real time.

Your Hearts Must Be Into It

We briefly touched on this point: Both partners must be 100 percent committed to couples therapy. Any wavering by just one partner can negatively impact sessions, as well as the situations that develop at home in which the relationship is put to the test. One of the keys to ensuring both partners are willing to make couples therapy work involves determining if both partners want the same things out of the relationship.

Open Communication is a Must

Couples therapy does not stand a chance of improving the relationship if one or both partners do not openly and honestly communicate with the therapist and the other partner. Even if you feel ashamed or embarrassed about certain topics, you should still share your thoughts and feelings to develop a better understanding of the roadblocks impeding the growth of the relationship. Both partners also should not agree for the sake of agreeing.

Couples Therapy is Not Just About Resolving Conflicts

Another misconception concerning couples therapy is that it is just for couples trying to resolve conflicts. You and your partner should consider couples therapy at any time. Waiting until the last minute to save a relationship typically means the relationship is in big trouble. You and your partner should consider couples therapy as a proactive solution to prevent small issues from developing into relationship-threatening issues. Couples therapy is an effective tool to help couples cope with changing life circumstances, such as becoming empty nest parents.

5 Conditions That May Be Revealed By Professional Psychological Testing

Diagnosing a mental health condition requires moving through a series of steps that help a certified therapist determine how to proceed with care. One of the most important tools to detect the presence of a mental health condition is called psychological testing, which comes in many different forms depending on the types of symptoms experienced by a client. The versatility of psychological assessments makes testing one of the most accurate tools for diagnosing and treating a mental health condition.

With the growing popularity of self-assessment tools available online, far too many people receive their information concerning their conditions from non-sanctioned mental health resources. To ensure the accuracy of psychological testing, the only way to get the correct diagnosis is by having a certified therapist conduct a proven assessment.

What is Psychological Testing?

Psychological testing represents a sequence of assessments that are monitored by a licensed and properly credentialed therapist. The sequence of assessments attempts to determine how a client feels, thinks, and analyzes different stressful situations. Psychological testing also gives a therapist insight into how a client reacts to different types of stimulation. The result of the sequence of psychological assessments is to help a therapist devise a game plan to address the development of one or more mental health conditions.

A client might undergo individual adult therapy and/or participate in group settings to get a better understanding of how to cope with their symptoms. The most common types of psychological testing include cognitive, personality, mental health, and adaptive behavior assessments. A client might complete more than one psychological assessment to help a therapist devise the most effective treatment plan.
What Are the Common Conditions Revealed by Professional Psychological Testing?
Psychological testing can reveal the development of a wide variety of mental health conditions, with the following five conditions representing the most common conditions revealed by professional psychological testing.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Once considered a mental health condition exclusively experienced by members of the military and law enforcement personnel, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) also is a common result of the trauma faced by violent crime victims. A therapist can utilize the result of several types of psychological tests to determine whether a client suffers from PTSD.

Dementia

The onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease often takes years to develop into a full-blown mental disability. Therapists that administer cognitive tests over several months can detect whether a client is experiencing a decline in mental capabilities. Combined with brain imaging scans, cognitive testing represents an effective tool to detect the symptoms of dementia.

ADHD

Children who struggle with focusing on classroom discussions and/or have a difficult time remaining sedentary for short periods might have the condition called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Psychological testing is an integral tool to detect the development of ADHD symptoms.

Depression

Depression is one of the most serious mental health conditions that can tear relationships apart, from marriages to the intricate bonds of family interactions. Conducting a series of psychological tests can diagnose the symptoms of depression, as well as help therapists develop customized plans to address the debilitating symptoms of the mental health condition.

Developmental Disorder​

Autism spectrum disorder is just one type of condition that is considered to be a developmental disorder. Although running a cognitive assessment can help a therapist determine whether a client suffers from a severe cognitive impairment, the therapist might have to conduct one or more additional psychological assessments to obtain an accurate diagnosis.

Will EMDR Therapy Help Me Accept the Memories of a Traumatic Injury?

If you sustained one or more traumatic injuries, you understand that the pain associated with the injuries goes well beyond physical pain. Dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic injury or injuries also can trigger emotional distress issues. This is especially true for victims that endured a traumatic event, such as sustaining injuries as the result of a car accident or as the victim of a violent crime. Law enforcement personnel and members of the military also are highly vulnerable to developing the negative emotional issues that define the medical health condition called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

PTSD represents a mental health condition that develops because a victim experienced a traumatic event. Symptoms can include flashbacks, nightmares, and acute anxiety. Many victims also have to deal with uncontrollable thoughts that consume their lives. For years, therapists tried to help victims of traumatic injuries talk about the event that caused the injuries to reduce the intense level of negative emotions. However, many therapists discovered that talking about a traumatic event that generated severe injuries only made the negative emotions worse. The result turned out to be the development of EMDR therapy, which can help patients accept the memories of a traumatic injury.

What is EMDR Therapy?Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy represents a mental health treatment strategy that involves encouraging a patient to move both eyes in certain ways while the patient processes traumatic memories, such as the traumatic memories triggered by sustaining one or more severe injuries. The goal of EMDR therapy is to help you heal emotionally from a traumatic life experience. With the sustaining of a traumatic injury, it might not be the injury itself that triggers negative emotions. Instead, you might experience PTSD symptoms because of the memories of the event that caused you harm.

EMDR therapy is a relatively new type of mental health therapy compared to more traditional mental health treatment regimens. The first clinical trial studying the impact of EMDR concluded in 1989, and despite the initial skepticism concerning the effectiveness of EMDR therapy, dozens of clinical trials conducted since 1989 have demonstrated the eye movement approach to healing emotional wounds can help patients recover much faster than undergoing other mental health treatment programs.

The Influence of Adaptive Information ProcessingEMDR therapy depends on a model called Adaptive Information Processing (AIP), which is a theory that describes how your brain stores and processes memories. The underlying scientific premise of AIP is your brain stores and processes normal memories differently than the way it stores and processes traumatic memories. Understanding how the AIP model influences the treatment of patients that suffer from PTSD symptoms has helped researchers improve the techniques used to implement EMDR therapy.

What Are the Steps of EMDR Therapy?EMDR therapy requires the completion of eight steps, starting with reviewing a patient’s healthcare history and then preparing a patient for additional steps by educating the patient about what to expect. The third step involves your therapist completing an assessment that identifies the specific memories that you need to reprocess. Desensitization and reprocessing comprise the fourth step of EMDR therapy followed by the installation of positive thoughts. Your therapist then gives you the opportunity for closure, which acts as a bridge for additional sessions in which you are reevaluated.

The eight steps for EMDR therapy represent a more comprehensive approach for treating PTSD symptoms than the approach used for individual adult therapy.

The Bottom LineEMDR therapy has emerged as one of, if not the most effective mental health approach to accepting the memories of a traumatic injury. The key is not to allow negative memories to fester by taking immediate action to reap the many benefits delivered by EMDR therapy.

Top 5 Behavioral Signs That You Should Seek Child Therapy

Children go through several mental, emotional, and physical developmental stages on the road to adulthood. Sometimes, the changes are subtle while at other times the changes leave parents confused as to what is happening to their loved one. The more dramatic changes in your child might prompt you to ask, “Is it time to take my kid to child?”

The answer to the question is not as easy as it seems. Children change for many reasons, from coping with a traumatic experience to simply reaching a milestone in the early life developmental process. Regardless of the reason for a noticeable change in your child, the change is important to determine whether your child needs to attend therapy sessions.

For adults raising a child, it is important to recognize the five behavioral signs that their child might need therapy.

Defiance

A vast majority of kids eventually move into a life stage when they start to question everything said by an adult, whether the adult is an authority figure inside or outside the home. One day, you might notice your child starting to argue, complain, and even become defensive at instructions that the child has accepted throughout the early stages of life. The question is not whether your child starts questioning your authority, but instead, the question should be how often and how vehement your kid has become at challenging your parenting decisions.

Pay close attention to the input provided by other adults, especially teachers and other parents that interact with your child on a daily basis.

Regressions

Children naturally regress in behavior because of a significant life change, such as the birth of a sibling or a shift in the relationship between parents. Nonetheless, if you detect a major regression in your kid’s behavior for apparently no reason, the time has come to consider child therapy. The most common types of regressive behavior include bedwetting, temper tantrums, exce, and frequent bouts of reverting to baby talk.

Sudden Habit Shifts

Sudden habit shifts, such as changes in your child’s slee, might indicate an underlying troublesome behavioral development. Children occasionally change habits to accommodate mental, emotional, and physical development stages, but when the shift in a habit turns into more than a passing trend, the time has come to take notice and consider enrolling your kid in child therapy sessions. Another habit to pay attention to is any changes in your child’s eating pattern.

Sudden habit shifts that last for more than a week demonstrate your child might be dealing with an intense emotional stressor.

Social Isolation

Although noticing a change in your child’s behavior is relatively easy to do when it involves sudden temper tantrums, the same cannot be said if your kid starts to isolate from other children. Withdrawing socially represents an automatic emotional response among children that feel acutely sad and/or anxious about a major life event. Isolating socially is a common reaction for children changing schools or having to deal with a change in parenting status.

If your normally social child starts to do things alone, you should consider giving the combination of child and family th a chance to heal what ails your kid.

Acts of Self-Harm

Although most of the behaviors children develop that indicate the need for child therapy are not easy to notice, the same cannot be said if your child starts to commit acts of self-harm. Although acts of self-harm represent an obvious sign of severe teenage angst, the acts also can be signs of a behavioral issue in a young child. The types of self-harm acts that are easy to detect include digging nails into the skin and banging the head against another object.

Why is it Important to Have a Customized Family Therapy Plan?

No relationship matters more to us than the relationships that we build with other family members. However, several factors can come into play that cause dissension between two or more family members. Although trying to work out family relationship problems on your own might resolve differences, by far the most effective approach to resolving family issues involves undergoing family therapy.

The important thing to remember is that a cookie-cutter approach to family therapy does not work to resolve the conflict between family members. Every type of family dispute has unique circumstances that require a family therapist to develop a customized plan to resolve one or more disputes. For example, one family might experience anger issues between a child and a parent. Another family might have to deal with a grandparent that oversteps the line between remaining neutral and taking a side with another family member.

Another important reason to develop a customized approach to family therapy concerns which family members should participate in sessions. A family therapist has to balance the different needs of different family members. For example, the needs of the oldest son are much different than the needs of the youngest daughter. Customization of family therapy ensures each family member has different needs met. In addition, customization ensures addressing the core issues that have created turmoil within a family.

What is Family Therapy?

FamFamily therapyly therapy consists of a type of treatment created to address specific issues that arise to negatively impact the mental health of one or more family members. It also addresses issues that cause dysfunction within the family interactive dynamic. Dr. Michael Herkov explains the premise of implementing family therapy techniques: “The way the family operates influences how the client’s problems are formed and how they are encouraged or enabled by other members of their family.”

Therapists can use a wide variety of techniques that include interpersonal, cognitive behavioral, and individual adult therapy to address conflicts that develop within a family. As with other types of treatments, the techniques implemented depend on the unique problems presented by participating family members, hence the need to adopt a customized approach to therapy sessions.

What are the Benefits of Customized Family Therapy?

Customized family therapy delivers many benefits that include growing a better understanding of what constitutes healthy boundaries. Families can improve communication techniques, which goes a long way to resolving minor disputes before they morph into major problems that disrupt the entire family interactive dynamic. With enhanced communication comes improved strategies for solving problems, even complex ones that seemingly have no viable solutions.

One of the most important reasons to implement a customized family therapy plan is to incorporate different methods for establishing deeper empathy. Each family member participating in therapy sessions possesses a different level of empathy. One family member might require a considerable amount of work developing empathy, while another family member has already achieved the right amount of empathy.

The Bottom Line

Regardless of the customized approach to therapy taken by your family, one of the most common goals is to bring families closer together after a crisis. A major life event such as death or divorce can tear apart the tight bonds that took years to forge. Customized family therapy also is highly effective at resolving conflicts, teaching the value of forgiveness, and reducing stress and tension among certain family members.

Why is an Intake Session the Most Critical Step in Couples Therapy?

Nobody said making a long-term relationship work would be easy.

Unless you live in a Utopia, your marriage is going to experience a few troubled phases throughout both you and your partner’s lifetimes. Marriage requires a commitment to make things work, as well as putting in the hard work to turn around what was once a tight bond that has deteriorated into a rocky relationship at best. How do you and your partner get your lifetime commitment back on track?

The answer in many cases is attending couples sessions where a properly credentialed therapist helps both partners explore the issues that have created a divide in their relationship. Couples therapy involves a series of several steps that requires both patience and resilience to navigate. However, the most critical step that leads to a successful outcome of couples therapy sessions is the first one, which is called the intake session.

Why is the Intake Session the Most Critical Step?

After agreeing to undergo couples therapy, both partners attend an intake session that initially starts with confirming several items that form the foundation for conducting therapy sessions, such as the cost and expected duration of the program. Both you and your therapist have the opportunity during the intake session to get to know each other, which acts as a kind of ice breaker that later on can create groundbreaking sessions involving both partners. The intake session represents the best time for both partners to benefit from adult individual therapy techniques, without leaving the other partner behind in receiving helpful tips and gaining important relationship insights.

After developing trust, the intake session is the critical step in the couples therapy process for two primary reasons.

Setting Goals

The therapist overseeing your couples therapy sessions has some idea of what ails your relationship before the first session, but the intake session is when your therapist gains the knowledge required to steer the couples therapy sessions in the right direction. Both partners must agree on the goal or goals of couples therapy sessions, which your therapist helps set during the intake session. Are both partners concerned about intimacy issues? Have finances started to wreak havoc on the relationship? Have career obligations formed a roadblock in preventing the development of your relationship?

Discovering the root cause or causes of discord helps your therapist set goals for repairing the relationship.

Emphasizing a Positive Tone

Repairing a broken relationship or one that is headed in that direction has no chance of succeeding if one or both partners refuse to abandon the blaming the other partner first philosophy. Couples therapy is not about holding one party mostly responsible for the deterioration of the relationship. It is about getting two partners together to find productive ways to break out of a rut or turn around a highly contentious relationship. Although your therapist emphasizes the importance of remaining positive during each session, it is up to both partners to focus on the positive elements of their relationship by displaying selfless traits such as compassion and empathy.

The first step is often the most difficult step to complete when it comes to repairing a broken relationship between couples. This is ultimately why the intake session is the most critical step in the couples therapy process.

SoHo, NYC

SoHo is home to the world’s greatest collection of cast-iron architecture. But more than that, SoHo is unique among New York’s neighborhoods for its classical French and Italian architectural designs. It simply doesn’t look like anywhere else, not even the neighboring West Village or Lower East Side. 

For one thing, the colors are much more distinct in SoHo. They’re brighter. Perhaps that’s a reflection on the people living here. But for many of the cast-iron buiildings that give SoHo it’s unmistakable character, the reason for their bright coloring is actually pretty obvious: whenever you construct anything from wrought iron, it’s going to look like, well, wrought iron.

So the colors of SoHo as they’re known, or at least as they ought to be known, the colors that are just a street photographers dream come true (where else can you find so many amazing backdrops?), are actually the result of many, many coats of bright paints. And they light up a photo in ways even a flash cannot.