Our counselors provide therapy in Gainesville, FL

My go-to approach for helping people in individual therapy is CBT. I prefer CBT because helps patients become more aware of their thought patterns and how they affect their behavior.

I believe that people understanding their thoughts, behaviors, and feelings will help them to have a less complicated life. I teach about:

• Cognitive distortions: Inaccurate thoughts that reinforce negative thought patterns and emotions
• Filtering: How a person ignores all positive and good things in life and only focuses on the negative
• Polarized/black and white/all or nothing thinking
• Overgeneralization: Coming to broad conclusions based on a single piece of evidence
• Jumping into conclusions: Faulty reasoning in how one makes conclusions (jumping into conclusions)
• Catastrophizing (magnifying or minimizing): Expecting the worst will happen
• Blaming: Blaming others for what goes wrong
• Emotional reasoning: If we feel in a certain way, that must be true
• And many others...

I know a client is making meaningful progress in individual therapy when the client seems happy, is constantly meeting the treatment goals, and/or requests to meet less frequently and I agree (or vice versa).

Clients can supplement their time in individual therapy by following the counselor's suggestions, meditating, journaling, exercising, trying to improve sleep, trying to relax and reduce stress, spending time in nature, becoming self-compassionate, practicing mindfulness, setting boundaries, acknowledging personal feelings, being open to change, and much more.

To prepare for your first individual therapy session, you can take time to relax and prepare yourself for the session, write down questions, write down your symptoms and your goals, schedule the session at a convenient time so you feel comfortable and not rushed, have realistic expectations that your issues will not be solved during the first session since therapy is a process, and give yourself credit for this taking first step.