What is strategic psychotherapy?

Strategic psychotherapy is psychotherapy that strategically targets the habits of thought and habits of relating that we know to be risk factors for depression and anxiety.  Not everyone is going to have the same symptoms or the same risk factors, that’s why diagnosing the particular patterns that are causing and maintaining your symptoms is important.

The cognitive risk factors include overly global thinking (of which binary thinking is a subset), difficulty identifying and tolerating ambiguity, an external locus of control coupled with a tendency to internalize blame, and a ruminative coping style.

The interpersonal risk factors include excessive reassurance seeking, negative feedback seeking, turning sadness into anger and lashing out, and an avoidant coping style.  Group therapy is often the best approach to treating the habits of relating.

Ultimately, the goal of any therapy is to increase positive emotions and to change the ratio of positive to negative emotions in a person’s life in favor of the positive ones. Take a look at Dr.Barbara Fredrickson’s website to learn more about the latest research on the psycho-physiological benefits of positive emotions.   Hypnosis is often helpful in strategically targeting cognitive and interpersonal distortions.  In fact, research shows that when hypnosis is added to CBT it increases the effectiveness of treatment by about 70% and this is particularly true in the treatment of obesity.  DrSara has offices in Cary and in Chapel HIll to help you conquer the habits of thought and habits of relating that keep causing trouble.

What is sex therapy?

Sex therapy is psychotherapy–talk therapy– where the subject of conversation is about the difficulties you might be experiencing in the area of sexual intimacy.  Board certified clinical health psychologists have many hours of advanced training beyond their professional degrees and licensure, and have passed the stringent review of their peers in the areas where medicine and mental health overlap. Sexuality is a very complex area of health and behavior, an area where medical, physiological, and emotional aspects of the person converge and must be understood in the context of the whole person.  Insurance has very particular criteria for when they will and will not cover sex therapy and very stringent exclusions about covering marital therapy.   DrSara has an office in Cary and an office in Chapel Hill to help you with your sexual concerns.

What is infertility counseling?

Infertility counseling is psychotherapy–talk therapy–where the subject of conversation is about the challenges you, might be experiencing as a result of infertility, that is, difficulties trying to conceive and have a baby.  People who go through months or years of invasive medical treatments trying to have a family often experience a roller coaster of emotions including stress, sadness, hope, despair, and ambivalence.  These experiences can strain the marriage or partnership too.  Infertility therapy helps to identify and normalize these many (and sometimes conflicting) feelings and to find ways to cope more graciously.  Although there are no guarantees that treating your stress level will make you pregnant sooner, there is a whole lot of research that suggests that stress, and all the negative emotions, interfere with fertility so reducing the stress can only help.  While there is no separate licensure or certification for infertility therapy, but there is a mental health professional group within the American Society of Reproductive Medicine where those who practice infertility counseling share ideas and converse about the challenges of the field. Board certification in clinical health psychology signifies the highest standards a psychologist can achieve and ensures that the psychologist has been duly credentialed and reviewed by his or her peers in precisely the areas where medicine and mental health overlap. DrSara has offices in Cary and Chapel Hill NC to help you with coping with your journey to fertility.