You are not your diagnosis.
We listen to your goals, harness your strengths, and leapfrog the obstacles with solutions that suit you. Maybe we’ll talk medication, review coping with feelings, or reprocess traumatic memories. We think outside the box and individualize your treatment methodically and transparently.
Family & couples therapy
Often the missing piece, working with the family, together or apart from the identified patient, can make the change possible.
Working with trauma
We help when other places can’t. So come to us first for integrated psychopharmacological and targeted psychotherapeutic approaches for complex psychiatric issues, anxiety, mood disorders, attentional problems and more.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
We cannot change the past, but we can change our approach and response to triggers of distress and cravings, learn to skip trouble before it strikes and manage reactions when it does. CBT is a bedrock of many therapies.
Relational / Psychodynamic
By learning to reflect on our own and other’s feeling states we gain insight and empathy, reduce impulsivity, and heal issues that have prevented us from feeling connected, trusting and loved. Psychodynamic thinking permits us to consider your developmental history, help your form a narrative of your life, and understand how you learned to cope with feelings.
Transformational
It’s a big word but we watch it happen all the time through many of our approaches which draw on both of the proceeding therapy models. We are trained in Experiential Dynamic Therapies including AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy), ISTDP (Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy), and IFS (Internal Family Systems), powerful contemporary approaches that aim for a corrective emotional experience that can change our attachment styles and narratives.
Integrated Dual Disorder Therapy
IDDT emphasizes that individuals achieve big changes like sobriety, symptom management, and an increase in independent living through a series of small, overlapping, incremental changes that occur over time. Therefore, IDDT takes a stages-of-change approach to treatment, which is individualized to address the unique circumstances of each person’s life. Mark wrote an article on this – Making A Great Dual Disorders Program.
Mindfulness
Learn to stay calm, improve your focus, change your perspective, and develop self-compassion. We use these in many of our sessions and therapies and also in specific training groups.
DBT
Four core modules teach and develop skills in interpersonal effectiveness, mindfulness, distress tolerance and emotional regulation.
Contingency Management
A profoundly effective and under-utilized treatment, mainly for addiction, that uses positive reinforcement instead of punishment. Punishment is pretty ineffective as people may be neurologically insensitive to it, it can trigger resentment and rebellion, and closes down reflective thinking. Instead, our treatments are focused on attaining rewards, quickly and in response for movement towards improvement and self care.
Case Management
Sometimes some support and structured guidance is needed to get people on track, teach skills and maintain safety; later people can sustain their recovery, removing the scaffolding. We meet at or out of the office to help you follow through successfully with goals.
The work may involve coaching on sleep habits, exercising, meditation, light box use, study skills, relaxation, budgeting and more.
Family and couples work
It’s sometimes needed to improve connection, provide education and decrease stressors. We use EFT and CRA-FT. See more on our page.
Holistic Approaches
As effective treatments, these can outperform medications.
- Sleep – hygiene, phase shifting, melatonin
- Light administration for seasonal depression, bipolar depression.
- Exercise
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Acupuncture
- Hypnosis
- Nutritional guidance
- Supplements including vitamins, probiotics, etc.
Mood disorders
Mood disorders are complex, resulting from different combinations of a wide range of factors. Biological, social, and emotional components all have an impact.
Sometimes, a mood disorder may turn out to be the result of emotional dysregulation or drug use instead. Or a “moody” person may, in fact, turn out to be bipolar.
This is why, at Psych Garden, we take the time to understand our patients and their histories in detail.
Anxiety disorders
Anxiety takes many forms. It hides behind different masks, such as:
- PTSD
- OCD
- Social anxiety
- Shyness
- Body dysmoprphia
- Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD)
Effective solutions combine both behavioural approaches like exposure response prevention and structured therapy in a safe environment, where we help our patients process the difficult emotions they’re facing.
Psychotic disorders
Psychosis affects between 5-10% of us in our lifetimes in some way or another. It’s a spectrum rather than an all-or-nothing; an exaggeration of adaptive hypervigilance. By understanding how this cognitive distortion can emerge and take hold, we help patients and families reduce the triggers and exacerbating factors and challenge their thinking.
The episode itself is rarely the main issue in a patient’s life. What causes disability is the accompanying symptoms, such as apathy, difficulty with logic, social withdrawal, and even depression.
We work with our clients to help them feel supported so that they can begin to reintegrate into their lives.
ADHD treatment
Attentional issues can show up differently for different people, with some being more hyperactive and others more spacey. Issues usually reveal themselves early in school and follow a fluctuating course through life, affecting many areas.
Careful diagnosis is essential. Treatment includes both behavioral and pharmacological interventions.
Psychological testing
No matter what challenge you’re facing, an accurate diagnosis is the key to unlocking the right treatment. Having a clear understanding of what ails you can help you navigate the journey to healing.
Our team of highly skilled, experienced psychotherapists will work together to help you develop a holistic view of your situation. You’ll learn how to capitalize on your strengths and build on the insights gleaned from assessment, so that you can overcome difficulties in your life.
Psychopharmacology
The disorders we’ve discussed here and others can be calmed to a large extent with medications.
In our experience, though, it’s really psychotherapy and building a trusting relationship that results in lasting healing.
Therapy + medication = transformation.
Medication is facilitative rather than transformative. Medication creates the environment for relearning, while therapy provides the safe relationship needed for someone to flourish and recapture their capacity for deep connection.
