Individual Therapy

Anxious? Depressed? Welcome to modern-day living. However, as therapists, we understand that not everyone experiences anxiety or depression the same way. That’s why I developed Individual Therapy at The Life at Your Best Plan, to meet you exactly where you are. 

I’m Travis Atkinson, LCSW, and along with Paul Chiariello, LMSW, we specialize in helping people make personal breakthroughs and increase overall well-being. We use a variety of methods, including schema therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, emotionally focused therapy, and interpersonal neurobiology. 

We look at your feelings and symptoms as a whole, in order to identify an approach that will create the results you’re looking for. 

What is Schema Therapy?

Based on cognitive and behavioral techniques, schema therapy applies useful principles from constructivist, psychodynamic, object relations, and gestalt therapies. Compared with standard cognitive-behavioral therapy, schema therapy places greater value on your emotions, emphasizes the therapeutic relationship between you and your therapist as a vehicle for change, and places a greater importance on the childhood origins of your current difficulties. Typically more long-term than cognitive therapy, schema therapy helps you modify your behaviors and the ways people feel and relate to you.

Schema therapy is especially effective at treating:

·       Chronic depression

·       Acute anxiety

·       Eating Disorders

·       Self-destructive patterns

·       And more chronic emotional disruptions

Individual Therapy

Schema therapy was developed by Jeffrey E. Young, Ph.D. of the Cognitive Therapy Center of New York. It is based on the idea that negative beliefs can lead to low self-esteem, lack of connection to others, problems expressing feelings and emotions, and excessive worrying about basic safety issues. The beliefs can also create strong attractions to inappropriate partners and lead to dissatisfying careers. 

Through a series of assessments, you will learn to recognize what schemas affect you, understand the schema’s origins, and learn how to make lasting changes in your life. Many patients who begin schema therapy have spent years in other types of therapies, gaining valuable insight but frustrated by their lack of progress. 

Schema therapy provides a straightforward, direct approach that goes beyond getting “in-touch” with your feelings. You work through structured assignments outside sessions that help you continually confront your negative beliefs. In each session, you work with your therapist to identify when your unhealthy patterns are repeating, and “empathically confront” them with the reasons for change. Your therapist supplies you with a partial antidote to meet your needs that may not have been met in your childhood.

Are you ready to boost your coping skills and rid yourself of the psychological scars that are holding you back?

Book an appointment with us today!