.png)
Your Family
Wellness Village
INDIVIDUALS
INDIVIDUAL THERAPY
What to expect: Individual therapy is the most common form of therapy to help anyone address life’s struggles and challenges. In these sessions, you are the focus of attention. Think of it as a weekly opportunity to check in on yourself, on your progress, your areas of growth, and to discuss and explore any past or current issue that is affecting your life and functioning. Your therapist will encourage you to take charge of the direction of your therapy, and following your lead, will serve as a guide and a mirror, reflecting back to you what she is observing. The process is often a mix of skills training and verbal and emotional process words. Occasionally or upon request, a take-home assignment - such as journaling, filling out a worksheet, or reading chapters in a book - will be recommended. Remember: you get out of individual therapy what you put in!
Do you ever catch yourself feeling at a crossroads in your life, uncertain of the next step to take? Perhaps you expected certain life transitions to go a lot smoother, but in reality, you are finally admitting that you struggle with the adjustment? Maybe you are newly struggling with anxiety and panic attacks? Or maybe you have always felt a little bit sad but never quite knew why? Perhaps work stress and lack of sleep can no longer explain why you are always so irritable and flying off the handle?
Time to connect with your new individual therapist at Your Family Wellness Village - your ally in your journey to improved functioning, balanced well-being, and satisfying life.
Keep reading below to learn about issues that are commonly dealt with in individual therapy. Please note that this list could keep going on and on - almost anything can be addressed in individual therapy! Call the main office to find out which of Your Family Wellness Village therapists’ would be a good fit for you.
ANXIETY AND PANIC ATTACKS
Anxiety refers to a persistent feeling of worry that is sometimes attributed to a specific trigger (for example a fear of getting sick), or sometimes not related to anything in particular. A panic attack is a very intense physical manifestation of anxiety and panic. People can describe it as having a heart attack or feeling like they are going to faint. A panic attack usually consists of a combination of: rapid heart rate, rapid and shallow breathing, sweating, shaking, chest pain, dizziness, feeling like one can’t breathe or is choking, chills or hot flashes, crying spells, nausea, or abdominal pain. One can suffer from anxiety without ever developing panic attacks. Anxiety is very treatable in individual therapy. Your therapist will often use mindfulness-based strategies to help you regain a sense of inner calm and grounding to regain control of the anxiety, instead of the anxiety having control over you. If the anxiety or panic attacks are very severe and impact several areas of your life, medication can sometimes be recommended in addition to therapy to aid in treatment.
*A quick note on medication*
Licensed Clinical Professional Counselors and Licensed Social Workers in the state of Illinois are not allowed to prescribe medication. We do not have the training or expertise in that area. Therapists at our Your Family Wellness Village do not push for medication. Rather, we follow our clients’ lead. This means, if you rather work on your mental health goals without medication, we will do our best to support you in that journey if appropriate. There are some situations where medication may be strongly advised, and your therapist can provide you with education on the benefits or necessity of medication for a more acute or severe condition. If you are wanting to get started on medication, we do have several medication providers that we work closely with, such as Dr Lucia Cheng among others, and we are happy to connect you with one of them if you are interested.
DEPRESSION
Depression is a pervasive feeling of sadness or downcast mood, occurring for more days than not, and lasting for at least 2 weeks. Depression can come and go, it is episodic. Depression can also be more chronic, usually milder, but lasting for years. People struggling with depression often find themselves unmotivated, having no energy, losing interest in activities they used to enjoy, difficulty taking care of themselves, isolation, negative thoughts towards themselves, and sometimes suicidal thoughts, self-injury, or thoughts of escapism. You can’t tell if someone has depression just by looking at them. Individuals with depression can still be highly functioning (or really good at hiding it - which is a very exhausting task in and of itself). At other times, depression can completely knock you off your feet and leave you feeling like you are just an empty shell of yourself. In this latter case, consulting with a medication provider is of essence, as antidepressants can help decrease negative thoughts (including suicidal thoughts) and improve energy which will bring functioning back to a more normal baseline. Depression is also very treatable. Mild to moderate depression will usually respond very well to skills and process therapy, helping you identify faulty thinking or emotions that get in the way of your best life. While more severe depression will usually improve with a combination of talk therapy and medication. Your therapist can help you determine which course of action is best for you.
RELATIONSHIP NAVIGATION, BREAKUP AND DIVORCE
Throughout a lifetime, it is inevitable that one will come across relationship issues, transitions, injuries, and growing pains. From getting to know each other in the early stages of dating, to fighting over perpetual problems 20 years into a marriage, and everything in between, individual therapy for relationship issues can help. If you find yourself wondering if you are ready to start dating again after a traumatic or painful dating experience; if you have just recently experienced a breakup or separation; if you are considering divorce; if you can’t figure out why your partner keeps nagging you about the same complaints; or if you want to work on yourself before saying ‘I do’, your individual therapist at Your Family Wellness Village can help you. You will explore and identify individual and family patterns that have held you back, outline your values and goals that you want your romantic life to be based on, identify what gets in the way, and then formulate new strategies to get you there. Your individual therapist may recommend complementing your individual work with couples therapy. Read more about couples therapy here.
LIFE TRANSITIONS
Graduating high school or college. Getting engaged, then married. Moving from one state to another. Immigrating from another country to the USA. Buying your first home. Getting laid off or being in between jobs. Becoming a parent for the first, or the third time. Experiencing a loss. These life transitions, even the positive ones, are all challenging to deal with. Our expectation of how we think we are going to cope, or what we think is going to happen, is often harshly contrasted with the reality of what is: stress, anxiety, difficulty fitting in, doubt, regret, and feeling inadequate, only to name a few. Connect with an individual therapist at Your Family Wellness Village, where you will get to spill the tea in a safe space about how these life transitions truly feel, for real for real. And then gain insight into flexible ways to cope with these changes.
BODY IMAGE ISSUES AND SELF-CONFIDENCE
Picture this: You just got your dream job, at one of the best companies out there in your field. This is what you’ve prepared for during your whole career thus far. First day at the job, you find yourself feeling inadequate, like you’re a fraud, or maybe you got that job by accident.
Or again this scenario: Your body just spent 9 months growing a beautiful and healthy baby. You are ecstatic with joy when meeting your newborn. Six months down the line, you find yourself a little bitter that the baby left you with stretch marks, a pooch that is not going away, and saggy breasts.
Maybe low self esteem is something you are newly experiencing. Or maybe, it’s been there all along, rearing its ugly nose every time you try to make strides forward or do something daring. Come connect with an individual therapist at Your Family Wellness Village to find out where your true value is, all the wonderful things your body does for you, or how imposter syndrome can actually help you in your career. Your clinician will not give you fake cheer and encouragement, but rather long-lasting tools to help see yourself through a lens of self-compassion, instead of the harsh pressure of perfectionism that we often have on ourselves.
Individual therapy at Your Family Wellness Village looks different for every client. We strive to listen to YOU, the main actor in the movie of your life. We use a collaborative approach, tailoring our treatment to what works for you. Our main treatment modalities used include Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical and Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and Mindfulness-Based CBT (M-CBT). To find out more about what treatment modality each clinician uses, visit our Meet Your Village tab. Call or email now for a free 15-minute assessment to find out which of our individual therapists or which therapy modality is best for you.