Beacon Counseling Treatment Modality

Treatment: FAQ

Who Are We?

Our mission at Beacon Counseling, LLC is to provide mental health services by a licensed professional in a domain most comfortable for you. As clinicians, we treat individuals, couples, and adults of all ages to cope with their psychological issues.

The Beacon Counseling Process: Expectations

In therapy, your first session will be an intake. This first session is used to gather data regarding your chief complaint. A diagnosis from the DSM V may be required (if necessary) however, for many it’s not.

Next, you along with your clinician will study the main complaint along with your moods, thoughts, feelings and level of functioning. The number of sessions needed to resolve your unique matter can vary greatly. This is something we will discuss collaboratively.

Once your illness is understood, the goal of therapy is to educate you on your specific ailment and co-create a tailored care plan to overcome it.

Finally, here at Beacon, we think that it is essential that clients become adept at identifying and effectively managing any potential relapse in their condition to mitigate any future flares or regression.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychological treatment that has been demonstrated to be effective for many mental illnesses and leading to improvements in functionality and quality of life.

CBT places an emphasis on helping individuals learn to be their own therapists. Through exercises in the session as well as “homework” exercises clients develop coping skills, whereby they can learn to change their own thinking, problematic emotions, and behavior.

CBT therapists emphasize what is going on in the person’s current life, rather than what has led up to their difficulties. A certain amount of information about one’s history is needed, but the focus is primarily on moving forward in time to develop more effective ways of coping with life.

CBT differs from many other forms of psychological treatment because it focuses on core principles:

Psychological problems are based, in part, on faulty or unhelpful ways of thinking.
Psychological problems are based, in part, on learned patterns of unhelpful behavior.
People suffering from psychological problems can learn better ways of coping with them, thereby relieving their symptoms and becoming more effective in their lives.

CBT treatment usually involves efforts to change thinking patterns. These strategies might include:

Learning to recognize one’s distortions in thinking that are creating problems, and then to reevaluate them in light of reality.
Gaining a better understanding of the behavior and motivation of others.
Using problem-solving skills to cope with difficult situations.
Learning to develop a greater sense of confidence in one’s own abilities.

CBT treatment also usually involves efforts to change behavioral patterns. These strategies might include:

Facing one’s fears instead of avoiding them.
Using role playing to prepare for potentially problematic interactions with others.
Learning to calm one’s mind and relax one’s body.
Not all CBT will use all of these strategies. Rather, the therapist and patient/client work together, in a collaborative fashion, to develop an understanding of the problem and to develop a treatment strategy.

Reference: American Psychological Association (APA)

209 Main Street | Southington, CT | 06489
Scheduling: 860-800-4758

General Questions: BeaconCounselingOffice@gmail.com