Psychotherapy Services in Topeka, KS

My Therapy

I provide Individual therapy for 30 minutes, or I offer 60 minutes sessions. These sessions can be either held at my office, or telehealth counseling can be arranged. The telehealth counseling can be held over the phone or can be on a laptop, i-phone, i-pad, etc. Tele-health counseling is easy to set up. You just call me up, we set a time to talk, and then I send you an e-mail with an invitation to join a telehealth counseling session. You can talk about your emotional issues, and it will like you were at my office. Sometimes before our meeting, I will send you an e-mail with a worksheet. I believe this can make the therapy go smoothly. If you don’t want to use a worksheet, that’s fine - we’ll talk.

My job is to help you and provide you with emotional support through these times of stress. Over the past 38 years, I have found that people are uncomfortable seeking out therapy. Many people have sought out therapy because someone else has strongly recommended therapy to them or they were given an ultimatum. People seeking therapy may fear that they will be labeled, and then some stranger highlights all the things that are wrong with them. The Psychology of Being Unique (PBU) assumes that when you put people into categories or clinical boxes, you attempting to take away their uniqueness, and it discovers what you are really thinking and feeling. This categorizing of people works both ways – both negative. When I take away your uniqueness, I am only restricting my uniqueness. I don’t see your point of view, and then - I do not know how you are truly feel and what you are really thinking.

Stress

When you feel stressed, specific neurological and hormonal processes are kicked into action. When these triggers present themselves, we will address things you say or do something that you may not want to say or do. For example, you are stressed, and your young four-year-old son spills milk all over your new sofa. You find yourself yelling, “What were you THINKING?” In the Psychology of Being Unique (PBU), in therapy, we learn how you are unique in that you are stressed out by hypothetical events, things that never happen, or might never happen. Your appraisals may be out of sync with reality, or out of touch with your actual coping skills. PBU helps you to uncover those thoughts, and we will use self-distancing techniques to begin restructuring those thoughts and beliefs.

Stress and Coping

I will teach you methods to alleviate stress. You will learn in therapy how to quiet the two primary physiological stress pathways: one secretes the stress hormone called cortisol, and the other secretes epinephrine or adrenaline (often called the fight or flight response). I will show you how PBU helps you examine your preferred coping styles to determine whether or not you're selecting the best adaptive strategies for you. PBU focuses on the process of cognition rather than its content. PBU uses mindfulness and meditation to help you with surprising results!

Depression

People who are feeling depressed often engage in maladaptive behaviors, which exacerbate their sad feelings. For example, in one of the three depressive spirals, a depressed person may engage in less social activity, which makes them more depressed, thus causing them to pull away even more. PBU helps patients reverse the spiral and participate more fully in their lives.

Anxiety and Fear

Contrast the emotions of anxiety and fear, and consider how each can feed the other. You will discover new ways of thinking and feeling that will help you address your concerns. You will learn relaxation techniques and how to deal with nervous tension. We will perform a thorough analysis of situations that induce these feelings, then see how behavioral experiments can systematically desensitize you to the things you once feared or avoided.

Trauma

Various types of trauma that can affect people. PBU can be used to treat these individuals with compassion. We will use the full range of tools used in PBU sessions to help you learn to trick your brain and begin the process of repairing the damage.

Mastering Chronic Pain

Both cognitive and behavioral factors influence the experience of pain and the intensity of suffering. Learn how psychological factors can alter the experience of pain, look at mind-body factors that can alleviate or exacerbate chronic pain, and take out the PBU worksheets to see how it can be applied to physical, rather than emotional, hurt.

Discovering Meaningfulness

Deriving from the work of Viktor Frankl, we will move beyond searching for explanations for why painful events happened, instead of turning your thoughts to what those events mean in your broader perspective and how your reactions can be intentionally shaped using PBU. See how PBU can provide tools to support positive shifts in perspective and help you see the bigger picture.

Adversity - Verbalize your adversities

● State the conditions, or instances of serious or continued difficulty or adverse fortune;● Discuss misfortune, difficulty in the past, difficulty occurring now, or● Anticipated struggle in the future without re-traumatizing yourself.

Basic Attitudes - Identify your basic attitudes: a mental position with regard to a fact and a feeling or emotion toward that fact

● Allocate the appropriate degree of responsible for your current situation, your feelings and behavior;● Differentiate your beliefs, desires, personal demands and extreme evaluation.● Identify possible flip of values, such as responsiveness to self-centeredness, etc.

Consequences of Basic Attitudes - Determine the consequences of the adversity accurately

● Report tension, feelings depressed and anxiety with short episodes of excessive anger, hurt, depressed, (unhealthy-rigid feelings), etc.● Recognize your self-defeating behaviors, non-productive ways;● You verbalize any distorted thinking and misperceptions you may have about the adversity.

Discover New Ways of Thinking, Feeling, and Behaving

● Find new way disputing irrational and rigid thinking and find a better way of thinking and solving problems;● Increase feelings of resiliency involving concern, flexible anger, sadness, disappointment, sorrow, grief, etc. that are more helpful and which will provide you with the means strengthen wanted emotions and your sense of resiliency.

Exercise & Practice New Attitudes

● Exercise and practice new attitudes and effective means of addressing adversity; ● Address the adversity and stresses in your life (A),● Talk about related emotional, behavioral, and cognitive consequences (C);● Practice desiring without demanding;● Learn and practice in using non-extreme evaluations; ● Match the five demands of life and how your Higher Values impact on your new vision that will increases your sense of genuine trust and sincere show of respect.

Follow Up

● Talk about how your practice (E) went in the past week.● Complete self-help assignments.● Discuss if the assigned self-help assignment improved your social situation and emotional life.● Practice calming yourself down in stressful situation and● Call upon your higher values of responsible, self-reassurance, taking sensible risks, reasonableness, etc. and● Discover these higher values have a greater influence over your life than self-centeredness, self-doubt, self-perfection, and intolerance to stress.

Goal Directed Behavior

● Increase goal directed behavior by practicing new ways of thinking, believing, feeling, and behaving that will help your reach your goals;● Set realistic short-term goals with a flexible plan that will help you to reach your long-term goals, and● Set realistic long-term goals so that that you experience your higher values and● Discover meaningfulness of the moment.

Insurance & Costs

Individual Therapy is $45 for 30 minutes.

Individual Therapy is $85 for 60 minutes.

Make Life Meaningful Educational Seminar is $50 for 10 sessions – all sessions must be prepaid

People who have been laid off and without resources can attend Make Life Meaningful Educational Seminars are free.

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