How We Help

Understanding Our Approaches to Therapy

Therapy isn't one-size-fits-all. Our therapists draw from a variety of evidence-based and developmentally appropriate approaches based on each client's needs, goals, age, and experiences. You don't need to know which type of therapy you need before reaching out. We're here to help determine what approach may be the best fit.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Connecting thoughts, feelings, and actions

CBT helps us understand how the way we think can influence how we feel and what we do. Through CBT, clients can learn to recognize unhelpful thought patterns, develop more balanced ways of thinking, and practice skills for responding differently to difficult emotions and situations.

Often helpful for:
Anxiety • Depression • Perfectionism • Low self-esteem • Emotional regulation • Stress

Mindfulness & Grounding

Helping the mind and body return to the present

When we experience anxiety, stress, or trauma, our minds can become focused on what might happen next or what has happened in the past. Grounding and mindfulness strategies help bring attention back to the present moment.

Depending on the client, this may include breathing exercises, sensory strategies, movement, visualization, noticing body sensations, or other techniques designed to help the nervous system settle.

These skills are often incorporated alongside other therapeutic approaches rather than used as a stand-alone treatment.

Often helpful for: Anxiety • Panic • Stress • Trauma responses • Emotional regulation • Overwhelm • Intrusive thoughts

Trauma & Healing

Play Therapy

When words aren't the easiest way to communicate

Children do not always have the words to explain what they are thinking or feeling. Play provides another way for children to communicate, explore experiences, practice new skills, and make sense of their world.

Through carefully selected games, art activities, imaginative play, and other developmentally appropriate experiences, therapists can help children build emotional awareness, practice problem-solving, strengthen frustration tolerance, and develop healthier coping skills.

Sometimes a game really is much more than a game.

Often helpful for: Emotional regulation • Anxiety • Behavioral concerns • Family changes • Divorce • Social skills • Self-esteem • Difficult life experiences

Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI)

Connection before correction

TBRI is a trauma-informed, attachment-based approach designed to support children who have experienced difficult early relationships, trauma, loss, adoption, foster care, or other disruptions in caregiving.

The approach emphasizes understanding the need beneath a child's behavior while helping caregivers provide connection, structure, predictability, and appropriate limits. Rather than focusing only on stopping unwanted behavior, TBRI asks what the child may be communicating through that behavior and how adults can respond in ways that promote both safety and connection.

Often helpful for: Adoption • Foster care • Early childhood trauma • Attachment difficulties • Behavioral concerns • Emotional regulation • Parent-child relationships

Family Dynamics & Relationship Work

Understanding patterns and strengthening connection

Every family develops patterns of communicating, responding, and relating to one another. Sometimes those patterns strengthen relationships, while others can unintentionally contribute to conflict, disconnection, or misunderstanding.

Therapy can help family members better understand these patterns, communicate more effectively, establish healthy boundaries, and develop new ways of responding to one another. The goal is not to determine who is "right" or "wrong," but to identify opportunities for healthier relationships and meaningful change.

Often helpful for: Parent-child conflict • Communication difficulties • Family transitions • Differing parenting styles • Relationship strain • Boundary concerns

Couples & Relationship Therapy

Creating healthier ways to connect

Relationship therapy provides a space for couples to better understand patterns that may be contributing to conflict, disconnection, or dissatisfaction.

Therapy can help partners communicate more effectively, understand one another's needs, navigate difficult experiences, rebuild trust, and develop healthier ways of responding during conflict. The goal is not simply to eliminate disagreements, but to help couples understand what happens between them when disagreements occur.

Often helpful for: Communication difficulties • Relationship conflict • Betrayal • Trust concerns • Life transitions • Emotional disconnection • Strengthening relationships

Thoughts & Emotions

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

Building skills for big emotions

DBT teaches practical skills for understanding and managing intense emotions, tolerating distress, communicating effectively, and navigating relationships. Elements of DBT can be especially useful for clients who know what they want to do differently but have difficulty accessing those skills when emotions become overwhelming.

Often helpful for:
Emotional regulation • Distress tolerance • Relationship difficulties • Impulsivity • Communication

Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT)

Understanding what you feel and what your emotions are telling you

Emotion-Focused Therapy helps clients better understand, experience, and express their emotions in healthy and meaningful ways.

Rather than viewing difficult emotions as something to avoid or get rid of, EFT helps us become curious about what those emotions may be communicating. By exploring the feelings and needs beneath reactions such as anger, anxiety, sadness, or shame, clients can develop greater self-awareness, emotional regulation, and self-compassion while learning healthier ways to respond to themselves and others.

Often helpful for: Anxiety • Emotional dysregulation • Relationship difficulties • Self-esteem • Shame • Grief • Difficult or overwhelming emotions • Self-understanding

Internal Family Systems (IFS)-Informed Therapy

Understanding the different parts of ourselves

Have you ever thought, "Part of me wants this, but another part of me is terrified"?

IFS-informed therapy recognizes that we all have different "parts" of ourselves that may hold different emotions, beliefs, fears, or protective responses. Rather than judging or trying to eliminate these parts, therapy approaches them with curiosity and compassion.

Understanding why certain parts of ourselves react the way they do can help reduce inner conflict, strengthen self-compassion, and create greater emotional balance.

Often helpful for: Trauma • Anxiety • Self-criticism • Shame • Relationship patterns • Identity • Emotional healing

Trauma-Informed Therapy

Understanding what happened, not simply what's "wrong"

Trauma-informed therapy recognizes that past experiences can influence how we think, feel, relate to others, and respond to the world around us.

A trauma-informed therapist considers the whole person and prioritizes emotional safety, choice, collaboration, and trust throughout treatment. Rather than viewing behaviors or emotional responses simply as problems to eliminate, we work to understand what those responses may have helped a person survive or manage in the past and develop healthier ways of moving forward.

Often helpful for: Trauma • Difficult childhood experiences • Relationship trauma • Anxiety • Shame • Emotional dysregulation • Trust and attachment difficulties

Children & Families

Parent Coaching

Helping parents understand what's underneath the behavior

Sometimes the most effective way to support a child is to support the adults caring for them.

Parent coaching helps caregivers better understand their child's emotions, behaviors, developmental needs, and patterns of responding. Together, therapist and caregiver can identify practical strategies for connection, communication, boundaries, routines, emotional regulation, and responding to challenging behaviors.

Parent coaching is not about identifying what a parent is doing "wrong." It is about helping families understand one another more clearly and finding strategies that work for their unique needs.

Often helpful for: Behavioral concerns • Emotional dysregulation • Anxiety • Family conflict • Parenting differences • Communication • Developmental transitions

Children & Families Navigating Divorce

Helping children stay children during family change

Divorce and separation can bring significant changes to a child's sense of predictability, security, and family identity. Therapy provides children with a neutral and supportive space to express their feelings, understand family changes, and develop healthy ways of coping.

Therapy may also include parent consultation focused on reducing children's exposure to adult conflict, strengthening communication, supporting transitions between homes, and helping caregivers respond to their child's emotional needs.

The therapist's role is not to choose sides. The focus remains on the child's emotional well-being and healthy adjustment.

Often helpful for: Divorce • Separation • Co-parenting transitions • Adjustment between homes • Family conflict • Emotional regulation • Grief and loss

Reunification Therapy

Supporting the careful rebuilding of parent-child relationships

Reunification therapy is a specialized form of family therapy intended to support the repair or rebuilding of a strained, disrupted, or disconnected relationship between a child and parent.

The process is individualized and may involve work with the child, parent, or other caregivers as appropriate. Treatment focuses on understanding barriers within the relationship, improving communication, increasing emotional safety, and gradually creating opportunities for healthier parent-child interactions.

Because reunification therapy may occur alongside court involvement or significant family conflict, clear roles, boundaries, and expectations are especially important. The therapist's role is to support the therapeutic process and the child's emotional well-being rather than advocate for either parent.

Often helpful for: Parent-child estrangement • Disrupted parent-child relationships • High-conflict divorce • Extended separation • Rebuilding trust and connection

You Don't Have to Know Which Approach You Need

If you're reading through these descriptions and wondering, "How am I supposed to know which one is right for me?" that's completely okay.

You don't have to choose.

Therapy is collaborative. Your therapist will spend time getting to know you, your experiences, your concerns, your strengths, and what you hope will be different. From there, you can decide together which approaches may be most helpful.

Therapy may also look different over time. What is helpful at the beginning of treatment may change as you or your child grows, heals, and develops new skills.

There is no single path to growth. Together, we'll find the approach that fits you.