Specialty therapies are available at the Cabell Huntington Hospital Counseling Center. Our licensed professionals have advanced training in the areas of emotionally-focused therapy (EFT), accelerated resolution therapy (ART), intimacy disorder therapy, substance use disorder and much more. Explore our specialty therapies below to determine whether these may be appropriate for you and your family.
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) is a unique approach to psychotherapy. ART is unique because the ART Therapist guides the client to replace the negative images in the mind that cause the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress with positive images of the client’s choosing. And this is done quickly, most often within one session! Once the negative images have been replaced by positive ones, the triggers will be gone. Nightmares and repeated intrusive thoughts will stop.
Some of the growing body of research that shows ART can do this may be found here.
ART is recognized as evidenced-based by the Society of Clinical Psychology, Div. 12 of the American Psychological Association (APA). ART is also unique in that it combines the enormous power of eye movements to allow voluntary changes in the client’s mind with well-established therapies like Gestalt, Psychodynamic Therapy and Guided Imagery. Within the ART protocol, the eye movements, along with other ART enhancements, make these therapies work much faster and more effectively.
With these therapies, combined with ART’s eye movements and other ART enhancements, many mental health problems other than Post Traumatic Stress can also be resolved quickly. Among the things ART can deal with are OCD, Eating Disorders, Generalized Anxiety and Generalized Depressive Disorders. ART can deal with traumas often associated with Dyslexia but also go beyond that to improve reading! (The issues that have been resolved by ART are listed more fully below.)
That eye movements are calming and therapeutic is evidenced-based. It has been shown that they produce theta waves in the brain. Theta waves have been connected to creativity, intuition, daydreaming. These brain waves are often present during meditative states.
One of the special aspects of ART is that when clients replace their negative images with positive ones they don’t need to talk to the therapist about any details of the trauma. This is because ART is procedural, though creative; and the client is really in control of the process, while the ART Therapist is a helpful guide. This makes the therapy easier on the client and easier on the therapist.
Although some traumatic experiences such as rape, combat or loss of a loved one can be very painful to visualize, early in the ART session the client has already rapidly moved beyond the place where they are stuck in these past experiences and is making positive changes of their choice. ART sessions are calming for the client and very often joyful, especially at the end, for both the client and the therapist.
Here are some issues that have been quickly and effectively treated by ART:
For more information on Accelerated Resolution Therapy, explore resources available through Accelerated Resolution Therapy - Treating Trauma and the International Society of Accelerated Resolution Therapy.
Retrieved on 3-8-2023 from: What Is ART? - Accelerated Resolution Therapy
“EFT couples counseling has facilitated an incredible journey in the restoration of our marriage!” - Client testimonial
Emotionally Focused Therapy is now considered the Gold Standard for couple therapy due to the wealth of research compiled over 40 years indicating that it is a powerfully effective model, and that its benefits continue at 2-year follow ups. EFT is a couple therapy model based in attachment science, which means that it is founded on the understanding that we as humans rely heavily on secure bonds with trusted others to help us feel safe in the world. We are wired for connection, and our brains respond to the threat of disconnection from our primary others in the same way they do to physical threat. This explains why when an adult feels disconnected from their partner they go into a threat response mode resembling the fight or flight reactions. The “fight” response at times looks like anger, criticism, or “neediness,” where the “flight” response at times looks like shutting down, going quiet, or walking away. Although it feels like the opposite to the other, the power of both responses is equal to the depth of the importance of their partner to the one responding in that way. When one partner fights for connection and the other partner takes flight for calm by seeking space, or vice versa, this negative pattern can strengthen over time and can eventually seem to take over the relationship. An EFT therapist comes alongside each partner’s experience and helps make sense of it through the lens of love: that both partners are longing for the return of their secure bond with one another, but the negative pattern keeps the relationship stuck. The model is called Emotionally Focused Therapy because emotion (connected to the importance of the loved one) is the primary motivating force driving both partner’s reactive responses. In EFT, the therapist helps each partner clarify their underlying emotion and share it with one another in ways that draw one another together rather than push one another apart. As both partners experience that they can safely lay down their defensive responses and instead share their vulnerabilities directly, they begin to experience secure bonding. A big part of this is that these experiences help them know and feel that they matter and are enough, and that their partner is and will be there for them. Once the secure bond is established or reestablished, the couple is able to find ways to solve the conflict issues that seemed impossible before, such as issues related to finances, parenting, sex, work-life balance… whatever issues they have not yet been able to effectively address together. Though solving problems effectively might have felt like the top priority, solving problems effectively is the cherry on the top of the ice cream of a happy, loving, secure partnership!
Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) seeks to create a feeling of trust, mutual respect, and strong communication within families. When all family members feel emotionally secure in family discussions, together they are able to discuss issues and disclose feelings. With each member feeling heard and validated, the family can work together to find solutions to problems and build individual relationships between all members. Families will emerge from EEFT sessions armed with the communication techniques necessary to maintain healthy interactions and develop positive relationships outside the family in the future.
How Emotionally Focused Therapy Helps Families
The goal of Emotionally Focused Family Therapy is to create feelings of safety, respect and understanding between family members. Families who attend therapy together learn the skills necessary to form a secure, validating environment where parents and children can comfortably communicate with one another in order to solve the problems that come up regularly in the family relationship. Oftentimes families seeking therapy are suffering from high conflict or hostile engagements between family members. Parents and children may both feel like they don’t receive the respect necessary to maintain a healthy relationship, or perhaps a relationship between two or more members simply does not exist. Emotionally Focused Therapists create an environment of safety and acceptance where each member can be heard, understood, and validated. As individual concerns are brought up the therapist will suggest methods that will allow the family to better understand one another and uncover any underlying emotions that feed negative patterns. Over time families will learn to communicate more openly with each member expressing their needs in a healthy way. As families progress through Emotionally Focused Family Therapy, relationships between members will improve or begin to from. The family will create a stronger bond while processing issues together and the deep wounds that have been festering within the family can finally begin to heal. The therapist will continue to moderate until together the family determines that they are comfortable and confident with their new skills and decide to discontinue sessions with their therapist.
Is Emotionally Focused Family Therapy Right for Your Family?
Consider the interactions between members of your family. Are relationships within your family unit hostile or nonexistent? Are there recurring issues in your home that seem impossible to solve? Does your family need help learning how to communicate with one another? Whether these questions describe your current situation or you are simply looking for a way to create a deeper and more fulfilling connection within your family, our Emotionally Focused Family Therapists are here to help you reach your relationship goals.
Retrieved on 6-16-2021 from: https://theeftclinic.com/eft-for-families
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) delves into past relationships all the way back to childhood in order to better understand the root cause of an individual’s mental and emotional struggles. Oftentimes addiction or mental and emotional roadblocks are the product of broken family relationships, past abuse, traumatic experiences or chemical imbalances in the brain. Emotionally Focused Therapists help individuals explore the dominant emotions and patterns in their lives to uncover underlying needs and suppressed feelings. Our therapists guide individuals through the process of recognizing and validating those thoughts and desires to promote healing and will teach clients methods of communication that will aid in promoting healthy relationships in the future.
Emotionally Focused Therapists are able to equip individuals with the skills they will need to have enduring, rewarding relationships throughout their lifetime.
Retrieved on 3-8-2023 from (EFIT) Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy | The EFT Clinic
For some of our clients, being able to bring their spirituality and faith into the therapy process is of particular importance to them. Having originally been an arm of the Pastoral Counseling Department of Cabell Huntington Hospital, the Counseling Center continues to have therapists on staff who have skill and experience in working with the spiritualty of their clients according to the client’s needs and within the client’s own faith context and beliefs. We understand that our role is not to teach, train, or lead clients toward what they should believe, but instead to partner with each client to help them leverage the rich resources that their spirituality or faith can offer, or to heal from damage done through negative or even abusive experiences within a community of faith or other spiritual context. Whether your faith or spirituality is a great resource to you or has been a source of pain, our faith-based counselors can assist you. Just indicate that you want a therapist that can work with you on issues related to faith or spirituality when you call for your first appointment.
Internal Family Systems Therapy is a powerfully transformative, evidence–based model of psychotherapy. We believe the mind is naturally multiple and that is a good thing. Our inner parts contain valuable qualities and our core self knows how to heal, allowing us to become integrated and whole. In IFS all parts are welcome.
To learn more about this therapy, please visit ifs-institute.com.
What is an Intimacy Disorder?
(The following article is used with permission by its author, Roy Rawers)
While you will not find Intimacy Disorders listed in the DSM-IV-TR, the American Psychiatric Association’s publication that is the standard in the mental health treatment community for categorizing mental disorders, it is a very common diagnosis with individuals and couples that come in to work on the quality of their relationship. Having read numerous books, attended dozens of hours of training and having worked with many couples affected by an intimacy disorder I have come up with my own definition.
An Intimacy Disorder is a personality style and/or adopted behavioral pattern that fails to support the progressive healthy deepening of an interpersonal relationship. Put more simply, having trouble getting or staying close to others.
Intimacy Disorders can be categorized into four common forms: Sexual Anorexia, Love Avoidance, Love Addiction, and Sexual Addictions. Let’s briefly introduce each form, look at some common patterns, and learn what you can do if you need help in recovering from any of these destructive disorders.
Sexual Anorexia
The International Institute for Trauma & Addiction Professionals (IITAP) website defines sexual anorexia as “an obsessive state in which the physical, mental, and emotional task of avoiding sex dominates one’s life.” Even within the diagnosis of Sexual Anorexia, there are several variations within this form of Intimacy Disorder, such as, Binge & Purging Type, where the anorexic bounces between total abstention and hyper active sexual consumption. Untreated Sexual Anorexics have a very difficult time maintaining quality long term relationships.
Some common experiences for the sexually anorexic include:
As listed on the IITAP website (sexhelp.com). Very common, but not always the case, sexual anorexics may have a history of trauma and/or toxic relationships with one or more parent.
Love Avoidance
While the classic image of the Love Avoidant is the stereotypical “bachelor for life” persona, like Charlie Sheen’s character in Two and a Half Men. Love Avoidants seek to control the frequency and intensity of emotional connection with their partners. The goal of the Avoidant is to try and balance their conscious fear of being smothered with their unconscious fear of being abandoned. The result is a pattern of seeking closeness followed by a pulling away or distancing. This is common with Avoidants and serves to diminish the feelings of trust and security between the partners, blocking the healthy development of the relationship.
Pia Mellody, one of the leading authorities on Love Avoidance and Love Addiction, lists three characteristics of the Love Avoidant:
Very common, but not always the case, Love Avoidants may have a history of intense relationships that don’t last and/or “on again-off again” relationship patterns.
Love Addiction
Similar to the plight of the Love Avoidants who seek to balance the fears of being smothered and abandoned, Love Addicts fear struggle is between abandonment and unfamiliarity with healthy relationship. The fear of abandonment keeps the Love Addict in a relationship that is unhealthy, even abusive. The lack of familiarity with healthy relationship patterns produces high anxiety for Addicts when they come close to healthy relationships. The Addict often selects an unhealthy partner to avoid contact with this anxiety or panics and creates a hurtful event that demands a distancing response from their partner.
Pia Mellody describes major symptoms of Love Addicts:
And just like their counterpart, the Love Avoidant, it is very common for the Love Addict to have a history of intense relationships that don’t last and/or “on again-off again” relationship patterns.
Sex Addiction
Probably the most common form of Intimacy Disorders is Sexual Addiction. Just as the Sexual Anorexic’s primary task is the avoiding sex, the Sex Addict represents the opposite side of the scale and is driven to consume sex. The International Institute for Trauma & Addiction Professionals (IITAP) defines and describes sexual addiction as:
Any sexually-related, compulsive behavior that interferes with normal living and causes severe stress on family, friends, loved ones, and one’s work environment. Sexual addiction has also been called hyper-sexuality, sexual dependency and sexual compulsivity. By any name, it is a compulsive behavior that completely dominates the addict’s life. Sexual addicts make sex a priority over family, friends, and work. Sex becomes the governing principle of an addict’s life. They are willing to sacrifice what they cherish most in order to preserve and continue their unhealthy behavior. No single behavior pattern defines sexual addiction. These behaviors can take control of addicts’ lives and become unmanageable. Common behaviors include, but are not limited to compulsive masturbation, compulsive heterosexual and homosexual relationships, pornography, prostitution, exhibitionism, voyeurism, indecent phone calls, and anonymous sexual encounters. Even the healthiest forms of human sexual expression can turn into self-defeating behaviors.
And just like their counterpart, the Anorexic, it is very common for the Sex Addict to have a history of trauma and/or toxic relationships with one or more parent.
What Can You Do if You Think You Have an Intimacy Disorder?
If you have experienced patterns similar to one of the disorders discussed, it is reasonable to seek the help of a mental health practitioner that is familiar with treating Intimacy Disorders. When selecting help ask the practitioner about their experience and training in treating these disorders. Do internet research to verify that your practitioner has good standing with an organization that focuses on ongoing research, training and treatment of sexual disorders, such as the oldest group dedicated to sexual health, SASH (Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health) started by Patrick Carnes or IITAP, developers of cutting edge research, training, and assessment tools, such as the 500+ question SDI-R (Sexual Dependence Inventory) also founded Patrick Carnes. There is a good chance that treating your disorder will not be a brief process, especially if there has been prolonged exposure to trauma, including neglect. You might expect at least a dozen weekly sessions followed by ongoing less frequent visits to your therapist’s office over the following months or even years. Remember, Intimacy Disorders develop and strengthen over time, often with roots that can be traced back to childhood, so allow yourself time to work toward achieving a progressively more healthful and deep interpersonal relationship.
If you want to know more about sexual addictions/intimacy disorders or suspect you are struggling with intimacy issues, please take a free screening test at Recovery Zone (Take a Survey (recoveryzone.com).
What is Somatic Experiencing®?
Somatic Experiencing (SE™) is a body-oriented therapeutic model applied in multiple professions and professional settings—psychotherapy, medicine, coaching, teaching, and physical therapy—for healing trauma and other stress disorders. It is based on a multidisciplinary intersection of physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics and has been clinically applied for more than four decades. It is the life’s work of Dr. Peter A. Levine. The SE approach releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma. It offers a framework to assess where a person is “stuck” in the fight, flight or freeze responses and provides clinical tools to resolve these fixated physiological states. SE provides effective skills appropriate to a variety of healing professions including mental health, medicine, physical and occupational therapies, bodywork, addiction treatment, first response, education, and others.
The Science
Trauma may begin as acute stress from a perceived life-threat or as the end product of cumulative stress. Both types of stress can seriously impair a person’s ability to function with resilience and ease. Trauma may result from a wide variety of stressors such as accidents, invasive medical procedures, sexual or physical assault, emotional abuse, neglect, war, natural disasters, loss, birth trauma, or the corrosive stressors of ongoing fear and conflict.
How It Works
The Somatic Experiencing approach facilitates the completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body, thus addressing the root cause of trauma symptoms. This is approached by gently guiding clients to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions. Dr. Levine was inspired to study stress on the animal nervous system when he realized that animals are constantly under threat of death, yet show no symptoms of trauma. What he discovered was that trauma has to do with the third survival response to perceived life threat, which is freeze. When fight and flight are not options, we freeze and immobilize, like “playing dead.” This makes us less of a target. However, this reaction is time-sensitive, in other words, it needs to run its course, and the massive energy that was prepared for fight or flight gets discharged, through shakes and trembling. If the immobility phase doesn’t complete, then that charge stays trapped, and, from the body’s perspective, it is still under threat. The Somatic Experiencing method works to release this stored energy and turn off this threat alarm that causes severe dysregulation and dissociation. SE helps people understand this body response to trauma and work through a “body first” approach to healing.
This content has been copied from the Trauma Institute website. For more information, visit traumahealing.org.
Cabell-Huntington Hospital Counseling Center is an outpatient-counseling center with professional therapists that have special training for the treatment of Substance Use Disorder. The Center’s Certified Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselors (AADC) provide assessment services, and a variety of treatment options including individual, couple, and family therapy depending on which best meets each person’s specific needs. Referrals for physicians who treat substance abuse with medications are available, however medical treatment is not provided at the Counseling Center. Couple’s and family therapy is available if applicable as well as assistance with locating support groups.
If you’re struggling with drug or alcohol use, you’re not alone. According to the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 40.3 million Americans, aged 12 or older, had a substance use disorder (SUD) in the past year. Substance use disorders continue to be an important health issue in our country.
If you’re hoping to make a change, it can be hard to know where to begin. There are many different types of medications and therapies used to support recovery. But how do you know which one is right for you?
Understanding which therapies are “evidence-based” (backed by science) can help you make the right choice. Many people don't understand why or how other people become addicted to drugs. They may mistakenly think that those who use drugs lack moral principles or willpower and that they could stop their drug use simply by choosing to. In reality, drug addiction is a complex disease, and quitting usually takes more than good intentions or a strong will. Drugs change the brain in ways that make quitting hard, even for those who want to. Fortunately, researchers have found treatments that can help people recover from drug addiction and lead productive lives.
How are Substance Use Disorders Treated?
A substance use disorder is a mental health condition in which drugs or alcohol causes significant problems in your personal or professional life.
Substance use disorders are generally treated with:
In some cases, your treatment might also include:
Substance use treatment is never one-size-fits-all. The type of treatment that is best for you will depend on your mental and physical health, what substance(s) you are using, and your personal preferences.
Evidence-Based Treatment
Evidence-based is a term used in medicine to describe a treatment that has been rigorously tested and shown to be helpful.
An evidence-based treatment is:
Counseling to Treat Drug and Alcohol Use Disorders
Counseling is the most commonly used treatment for substance misuse. Counseling is a treatment that helps people with emotional, physical, and mental health problems function better.
If you have a substance use disorder, counseling can help you:
During therapy, you meet with a therapist or counselor. In some types of therapy, you meet one-on-one. Other types of therapy include your partner, your family, or your peers. Keep in mind that most people need at least 3 months in treatment to significantly change their substance use. You can also choose to do more than one type of therapy. For example, you could have a couple’s therapist but also be involved in a 12-step program.
What are some of the Best Evidence-Based Therapies for Substance Use?
There are many different types of talk therapy that are backed by science:
What’s the Difference Between Outpatient, Inpatient, and Residential Treatment?
Substance use treatment usually takes place in one of these three settings:
Do I Need To Do a Detox?
It depends. If you are physically dependent on drugs or alcohol, your treatment may need to start with a supervised detox. A detox is the process of alcohol and/or drugs leaving your body. Detox is not a treatment by itself, but it can prepare you for starting other types of treatment, including therapy. Detox can either be done as an inpatient or as an outpatient treatment with medical guidance.
Taking the Next Step
If you’re looking for help with substance use and are not quite sure what type of treatment is best for you, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) treatment locator can help you locate the most applicable services. The Cabell Huntington Hospital Counseling Center is an outpatient-counseling center with periodic group therapy options for substance use treatment. Certified Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counseling therapists are available for therapy and assessment. Referrals for physicians who treat substance abuse with medications are available but not provided on site. Couple’s and family therapy is available if applicable as well as assistance with locating support groups.
For additional information, please visit samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline.
Retrieved from www.goodrx.com/conditions/substance-use-disorder/best-therapies-for-alcohol-and-drug-use.