Individual therapy is also often called therapy, psychotherapy, psychosocial therapy, talk therapy, and counseling. Individual therapy is a joint process between the therapist and the person in therapy. Together, therapist and client work toward a common goal or goals, such as inspiring growth, seeking support through major life changes, improving quality of life, and processing past traumas. Therapy can help us deal with issues that are hard to face alone and overcome obstacles to our well-being. It can increase positive feelings, such as compassion and self-esteem. In therapy, we can learn skills for handling difficult situations, making healthy decisions, and reaching goals. Contrary to how it is sometimes portrayed, we don’t have to be experiencing difficulties to seek therapy. Many folks find they enjoy the therapeutic journey of becoming more self-aware and engage in ongoing therapy for self-growth.

EMDR is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of upsetting or traumatic life experiences. By using bilateral stimulation, EMDR helps process and neutralize the emotions and reactivity associated with memories of difficult experiences. It also helps us change how we think about ourselves, others, and the world by replacing negative beliefs with kinder, more accurate beliefs. For single-event trauma, EMDR can treat symptoms in as little as 8- 12 sessions. For more complex or repeated trauma, EMDR requires more sessions and is one of many tools we use. EMDR has also been shown to effectively treat phobias, pain management, depression, anxiety, and more. EMDR can be done in 50- 60-minute sessions or in 90-minute sessions.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one of the most common types of talk therapy. Through CBT, we become aware of inaccurate or negative thinking that affects our mood and actions. With CBT-based tools, we learn how to address this thinking in order to view challenging situations more clearly and respond to them in a more effective way. CBT is often combined with other types of therapy to foster compassion for self and others, the ability to respond to difficult emotions and situations, and improve mood.

Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) is an evidence-based treatment shown to help children, adolescents, and their caregivers overcome trauma-related difficulties. It is designed to reduce negative emotional and behavioral responses following trauma, such as child abuse and neglect, intimate partner violence, traumatic loss, natural disasters, and more. Like CBT, TF-CBT identifies and addresses negative beliefs related to the traumas and provides a supportive environment in which children are encouraged to talk about their traumatic experiences and emotions. They learn skills to help them cope with ordinary life stressors as well as trauma-related symptoms. TF-CBT also helps parents who were not abusive to cope effectively with their own emotional distress and develop skills that support their children.

Sandtray therapy is a form of expressive therapy. In Sandtray, we use miniature figures and a sandtray to build our world(s). Sandtray helps us communicate what we cannot put into words and to represent our hurts, desires, and needs with the necessary distance to keep us regulated. As we process the world in the tray, we are also processing our own emotions, memories, and experiences. We can work through our blocks and pain to identify what we need. Sandtray is a wonderful therapeutic tool for all ages and can be combined with EMDR to help process trauma.

Person-centered therapy is an approach that requires the client to take an active role in their healing and encourages a collaborative approach between therapist and client. In person-centered therapy, the client determines the course and direction of treatment, while the therapist clarifies the client's responses to promote self-understanding. The goals of client-centered therapy are increased self-esteem and openness to experience. Client-centered therapists recognize that the clients are the experts on their own lives and that the therapist is merely reflecting and offering potential tools to help clients lead full lives of self-understanding. Person-centered therapy helps reduce defensiveness, guilt, and insecurity, supports clients in having more positive and comfortable relationships with others, and helps clients have an increased capacity to experience and express their feelings.

Family therapy focuses on the family unit as a whole in order to promote understanding and collaboration among family members. Families can benefit from therapy when they experience any stressful event that may strain family relationships, such as financial hardship, divorce, or the death of a loved one. In addition, family therapy can help support families when ongoing health concerns, such as depression, substance abuse, chronic illness, and food issues, affect the entire family. Family therapy is also beneficial for everyday concerns, like communication problems, conflict, or behavioral problems in children and adolescents.

Gender affirming care is mental health care that helps people feel happy, healthy, and safe in their gender. Gender Affirming Care takes a holistic approach to making sure a person’s mental and physical needs surrounding their gender identity and expression are met.

Triquetra Staff are certified in Gender ASSET letter writing and are here to ensure a nonjudgemental, affirming, and stress-free environment while working through the, sometimes difficult and complicated, process of getting letters for gender affirming care in accordance with WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health).

Somatic-based therapies use movement and stillness to address the physiological affects of trauma and how trauma is stored in the body. Often based on polyvagal theory, somatic work helps clients release stored trauma that manifests as tension, pain, and activation. Somatic work also helps to calm the nervous system by teaching breathing techniques, postures, and movements that promote stillness and peace. Somatic work can be combined with other types of therapy, such as EMDR, to help us heal from challenging situations in life and manage chronic illness.