Individual Therapy
Philadelphia

goals for individual therapy

Are you experience highs and lows?

You’ve been reasonably successful in your life. You know what drives you. You’ve decided what will make you happy and what kind of stamp you want to leave on this world.

You’ve experienced life’s highs. Yet, you have moments. Moments that change you in varying degrees. These moments seem to take over you out of nowhere and stop you in your tracks. You consider these times to be your lows.

What if we told you that you could increase the high moments?

You have tangible successes all around you, but do you feel those successes? With opulence comes a level of industriousness that can feel monotonous at times. Your daily grind has put a shadow over your ability to be intentional. Not to say there aren’t moments that you find yourself taking in what life has to offer you, leading to one of those high moments. You have the power to increase those moments through intentionality.

You’re ready for the challenge

Perhaps you’ve tried having a year of growth, but it didn’t get you anywhere. You couldn’t come up with a new perspective, or you couldn’t sit in the discomfort of change.

Most people struggle to do the work alone. Having a judgment-free space to learn more about yourself with an unbiased partisan to reflect on your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors will lend itself to a streamlined journey to more significant insights.

You’ll have the warm, empathic support of someone as you sit in your raw emotions. You will learn how to see your life in a different light. You will start to recognize life’s scary moments, but you won’t let them drive you. Instead, you’ll have tools to capitalize on the high moments and process through the low moments.

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Our Specialists & Therapists For Individual Therapy in Philadelphia

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Decide to care for yourself.

Therapy is one of the hardest things you’ll do in your lifetime. Looking at yourself, and I mean really looking at yourself, can be unnerving.  Research shows that humans are more inclined to care for someone or something else before themselves. When will it be your turn? Self-care and self-awareness are so important when thinking about creating those tangible successes. If you’re reading this, you’ve already made the first step to gaining insights. Are you ready for the next step? The Better You Institute offers therapy & counseling in Philadelphia, PA, and Online Therapy for those living further away!

Common Individual Therapy Topics

  • intersectionality and multiculturism
  • confidence building
  • increase self-awareness
  • increase self-esteem
  • anger management
  • sex
  • dating
  • current/ past relationships
  • major life adjustments: graduating, living alone, living with a significant other, engagement/marriage, having children, empty nesting, retirement, moving, shifting into a new financial bracket
  • communication skills
  • assertiveness training
  • career guidance
  • family guidance
  • social guidance
  • mood regulation
  • gender identity
  • sexual orientation
  • social justice support
  • overcoming past trauma
  • recovering from a narcissistic relationship
  • exiting a cult, religion, or major group
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Types of Individual Therapy and Counseling We Offer in Philadelphia, & Online

There are various therapeutic models clinicians can work from to best serve you. After hearing what you want to work on, we can pair you with a mental health professional that works from a model that fits your needs. Using many different models allows us to treat an assortment of mental health counseling topics (see above for reference of which ones we see most commonly) you may be struggling to overcome.

Below is a list of some of the styles of individual therapies & counseling strategies we can use to help you become The Better You:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, treatment helps you look at the connection between your thoughts and emotions with your behaviors. This model enables you to understand where these thoughts and feelings come from to work on challenging them. Much like psychodynamic therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can help you bring unconscious drivers to the consciousness of working toward healing.

Then, you will open yourself up to new experiences that can elicit new thoughts and emotions through exercising different behaviors. Through this process, you can replace negative thinking patterns with positive ones. The belief behind CBT is that healthy, well-adjusted thoughts and feelings often promote productive actions. Research shows that CBT is one of the most effective models to date.

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 Experiential Therapy

This type can help with both past and future experiences. Whether you’ve experienced severe trauma or a recent incident that doesn’t sit well with you, experiential therapy can help you work through the emotions and thoughts that stem from your past experiences. Using role-play, acting out, art, dance, or other activities that resemble the event, the therapist will help clients name what feelings and thoughts are associated with these experiences. With the help of a professionally trained psychotherapist, you will process these thoughts and emotions to make sense of them and feel a resolve.

Similarly, you can also look to the future and explore different behavior patterns or practice how it might feel to say or do something that right now feels anxiety-provoking. In the safety of the therapeutic relationship, you can take risks to try out something that you’d otherwise have avoided or felt nervous about. Instead, you can feel confident knowing what to expect and how to get yourself through the future event. Through experiential sessions, you can process past events, learn to process what comes up, or move toward a better future for yourself. This type of therapy tends to be a good model for those who have traumas, anxiety, tend to ruminate, substance use, or who want to practice better relational skills.

Person-Centered Therapy

Person-centered therapy seeks to create a supportive and non-judgmental environment in which the client can explore the issues holding them back from achieving their full potential. The therapist serves as a guide, helping the client find their own answers and develop greater insight into their thoughts and behavior patterns.

This type of therapy is based on the belief that everyone can grow and change, given the right conditions. As such, person-centered therapy can be an effective treatment for various psychological issues.

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Internal family systems therapy (IFS)

Internal family systems therapy (IFS) is a form of psychotherapy that views the self as composed of multiple sub-personalities or “parts.” IFS assumes that these parts can have different goals, values, and opinions and often conflict with one another.

The goal of IFS therapy is to help people become aware of these parts and learn how to communicate with them to work together towards the common goal of healing.IFS helps treat various issues, including anxiety, depression, addiction, trauma, and stress.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Acceptance and commitment therapy’s, or ACT, the primary goal is to help you become mindful of your experiences, thoughts, and feelings.

When you are mindful, you can increase your psychological flexibility. This approach is not to change your emotions or thoughts but instead work to accommodate them.

You are allowing them to be a part of you and adjusting in a way that serves you. Over time, you will learn to be more intentional and achieve your goals.

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Gestalt Therapy

The Gestalt approach is an experiential orientation that engages a lot of present moment interpretation(s). This “present moment interpretation” can involve dynamics between therapist and client or self-regulating experiences. The therapist will guide the conversation in helping you to identify patterns or dynamics within the room. The use of the body is important during Gestalt sessions. Many Gestalt interventions use your creative side, as well as identifying where you hold your thoughts and feelings in your body.

Chair work is an example of a Gestalt intervention. Chair work often starts with two chairs: One chair is for the client, and one chair is for an abstract idea or a person in the client’s life who is not physically present in the session. The use of the empty chair allows the client to express themselves to the relevant person or idea freely.

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What is Individual Therapy?

It is a process between one therapist or psychologist and one person in talk therapy for personal mental health resolutions or psychiatric needs. Through individual therapy, the client and therapist create a professional relationship that guides change.

The therapist can offer insights and skills while also helping to model a healthy relationship both with yourself and the people around you. The goals of these therapy sessions are to inspire change or improve quality of life. People often look for therapy to help with issues that are hard to face alone, such as trauma, relational issues, or unstable moods, among other personal developmental topics.

Over time, you will feel empowered to make changes and start to have insights of your own.

What is The Advantage of One-on-One Therapy?

One-on-one therapy is a more interpersonal experience, and some individuals need a more intimate surrounding to open up in their sessions fully.

In all of your sessions, we try to create the most therapeutic, calm, and safe atmosphere we can for you to mentally and emotionally heal in the best possible way. If you believe that an interpersonal therapy session is right for you, do not hesitate to contact us today!

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emotionally focused individual therapy

What Are the Benefits of Individual Therapy over Group Therapy?

There are many advantages to individual therapy sessions over group therapy.

During one-on-one therapy and counseling sessions, you are the main focus of the sessions. Group sessions usually spread the focus among many people. Most of the attention usually goes to the individual who is speaking at the time or the overall theme of the session that day, which may or may not directly affect you. In contrast, you are the only focus in your therapy sessions and can lead the session’s direction to fit your needs best.

Individual sessions has a different feel than does group sessions. While both can feel vulnerable and raw, individual therapy allows you to independently take up more of that space. Again, you are the leader. Group sessions may give way to you following rather than leading.

Although group therapy can be beneficial to many people, it is not for everyone. You may also find it much easier, to be honest and vulnerable in an individual setting over a group setting. Moreover, certain issues, such as social anxiety, may worsen in group sessions.

getting to know you activities for individual therapy

You also have more flexibility with scheduling with individual therapy than you do with group sessions. Group sessions are at exact times/days, which means you must be there at a pre-set time to take part. Whereas, with individual therapy, you can ask your therapist to move your appointment if something comes up.

If you choose to attend group sessions, we encourage you to also be in individual therapy as you may need to process what comes up for you in group sessions. Again, you may find it easier to discuss particular topics in the privacy of an individual session over a group setting.

We tailor your therapy, counseling, and psychotherapy sessions to you and your needs. We can meet at any time, and we even offer phone and telehealth (i.e., video sessions) our individual counseling services works on your schedule. Contact us for more info and a free consultation!

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