Individual And Family Therapy
OPA Behavioral Health has an excellent team of Licensed Clinicians, Registered Interns, and Master’s Level Practitioners who provide psychotherapy services under the supervision of Katie Cutchin, LCSW, Director of Therapy Services. Our counseling services include:
Individual therapy is a type of psychotherapy in which a mental health professional such as a Therapist works one-on-one with a client to provide personal support to work through mental, emotional, social, and behavioral health challenges. Individual therapy may also be referred to as talk therapy, counseling, or psychotherapy.
Individual therapy offers many benefits to those struggling with mental health disorders. If you choose to receive individual therapy, some benefits you may experience are:
- Individualized emotional support and counseling catered to your unique needs
- A private outlet for self-expression, free from the fear of judgment from family or peers
- An opportunity to focus exclusively on your personal growth and healing with the help of a dedicated professional therapist
- Addressing all of your biological, psychological, social, and emotional needs.
- Building healthy coping strategies and problem-solving skills, learning to recognize and reframe harmful and unhelpful thinking, identifying triggers for specific symptoms, uncovering underlying traumas that may be contributing to your symptoms, and creating a safety plan and relapse prevention strategy
When comparing individual vs. family therapy, they differ in that family therapy focuses on the family unit as a whole. The family is considered a system of different parts. A change in one part will create a change in the whole. This means that when one person in the family struggles with a mental health condition, all members of the family can be affected.
Family refers to a group of two or more people with a close emotional bond. Family looks different for everyone, and as such, family therapy can look different as well. It can involve parents, siblings, spouses, aunts and uncles, in-laws, grandparents, stepchildren, extended family members, and other relatives.
Family therapy has two main goals. The first goal is to help everyone in the family learn to provide a healthy level of support to the person struggling with mental health conditions (while also setting healthy boundaries). The second goal of family therapy is to promote familial healing and strengthen the emotional health of the entire family structure as a whole.
Family therapy may be beneficial if you struggle with a mental health disorder. Some benefits you and your family may experience are:
- Better treatment outcomes—research indicates that treatment programs that include family therapy have better outcomes than those that do not.
- Benefits for the whole family—family therapy provides benefits to the whole family, not just the individual struggling with the mental health condition.
- Reduction of the burden of stress on other family members.
- Decrease in the risk of dropping out of treatment.
- Promotion of long-term recovery and discouragement of relapse.
- Increase in medication adherence and reduction in psychiatric symptoms.
- Creation of lasting change through family members helping to improve client motivation.
- Potential for generational healing—family therapy can help families break generational patterns that contribute to unhealthy dynamics.
- Positive effects on client engagement in treatment.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to therapy and treatment. A comprehensive treatment plan usually integrates several different therapeutic modalities to provide care that addresses all aspects of your experience: physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual. Treatment may include individual therapy, family therapy, group therapy, medication, and peer-support programs.
Proper assessment is an important first step in creating an individualized treatment plan that is tailored to your unique needs. When you first seek out treatment, you will undergo a biopsychosocial evaluation to determine all of the factors affecting your mental health condition. This will include a thorough medical and family history, past traumatic experiences, and a chronological record of past symptoms. This initial assessment will not be the only one during the treatment process, however. Treatment plans must be continually monitored and assessed for effectiveness so that treatment is meeting your ever-changing needs.
If you or a loved one are considering individual and/or family therapy, contact us at 407-851-5121 to get the help you need today.