Welcome To InnerWisdom Counseling Centers

Individuals who are relatively comfortable with many aspects of their lives, but are faced from time-to-time with specific events or relationships that require professional guidance or clarity often use Outpatient Treatment Programs. These counseling programs tend to be helpful to those individuals who require occasional participation in a therapeutic environment. Outpatient Treatment Programs allow individuals to work on a variety of personal or relationship issues such as loss, depression, careers or job loss while keeping up with day-to-day activities.

Our Outpatient Treatment Programs (counseling) consist of group or individual therapy sessions or a combination of the two. Individual therapy is a one-on-one session with a professional counselor and is helpful when insight into a specific event or situation is required. Group therapy is a cost effective and efficient way to work through past issues that inhibit an individual's ability to achieve fulfillment, or for an individual who is experiencing an event that is life changing.

Establishing a Therapeutic Relationship

Psychotherapeutic relationships, clients and counselors, do not follow specific guidelines and may take some time to establish. Therapy sessions should be intriguing for the client, however they may initially prove to be erratic, inconsistent, and fraught with resistance. Therapy's goal is to assist the client to begin thinking about how they feel, why they act the way they do, and how various aspects and events of their life are related in ways they hadn't considered before.

Clients also want to feel that they are gaining clarity into, or getting to the bottom of what they are feeling, how they are acting, and what they believe. What clients want most from therapy is the experience of relief and insight. Then they can go about the process of making the changes necessary to create a better life.

Insight is the objective of psychotherapy and clients will know when it occurs. Insight is not like intellectual learning. It is a sudden feeling of clarity, sanity, hope, decisiveness, and energy. This is the course of healing that psychotherapy offers. When one feels the emotions they have repressed, and when one becomes aware of things they have avoided, they feel better, then they begin to function better. Psychotherapy and How it Works helps individuals know what to expect, allowing them to benefit more effectively from the therapeutic process.

Problems addressed in the outpatient programs are:

Mental health problems such as:
Depression, anxiety, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, stress or related conditions
Medical health problems such as:
Dialysis, liver monitoring, organ transplant
Potentially life threatening disease such as cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's Disease, Cardiovascular disease, hypertension, or stroke.
Chronic or disabling pain

Outpatient Treatment Programs Include:

Individual Therapy - adult and adolescent - Assists individuals with problems and life's difficulties in a one-on-one therapy setting. Counseling for a variety of problems ranging from typical difficulties young adults experience to more serious problems associated with acute or long-standing psychological disturbances can be approached. Counseling services are oriented toward short-term interventions designed to help individuals develop a personal understanding to the source and treatment of their specific problems.

Individual counseling addresses a variety of problems and concerns which may include depression, anxieties and fears, self-esteem issues, sexual assault trauma, interpersonal conflicts, career issues, eating disorders, stress management, family conflicts, physical/ emotional/ sexual abuse, and other distressing conditions.
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Family Therapy - The aim of family therapy is for family members to understand and accept their individual responsibility in the emotional functioning of the family unit. By learning to recognize the emotional relationship patterns and how anxiety is handled in the family, individual family members can manage themselves in more functional ways. Relationships change and symptoms decrease as family members improve their emotional functioning.
Back To Top

Couples Therapy - Maintaining a loving relationship is no easy task. Demanding schedules and little extra time and energy may complicate communication. Couples who have been together for years may experience unresolved conflicts, or new couples may wonder how to ensure their relationship will last. Couples therapy helps partners learn how to manage conflict, avoid pitfalls, create a shared vision, and work together as partners.
Back To Top

Addictions Counseling - including Eating Disorders - Substance abuse and eating disorders are considered medical diseases because they affect the entire body. The crippling affects of the diseases include a gradual inability to function normally in every area of a person's life. Addictions affect people, families, communities, and nations and destroy millions of lives every year. They are progressive diseases and get worse over time. They never get better on their own.

Addictions can progress from mild to severe and recovery requires a complete life-style change. Everything that interferes with sobriety and/or abstinence, including family members in some cases, must be changed before recovery can be successful.

Addiction is considered a national epidemic and is the second leading cause of adult deaths in the country, led only by tobacco related diseases. Addictions not only destroy individual lives, but the lives of innocent people, as well.
Back To Top

Vocational Evaluation and Coaching - Focusing on the inherent nature and gifts of the individual, and finding a vocation that involves these strengths creates success and happiness, in relation to the working world. This means that the functions one performs through work comes naturally. It also means that work rewards the values that one has developed. For example, independence, job security, use of creativity, sense of adventure or variety can be important elements in one's job choice.

One-on-one or group counseling is valuable in helping individuals explore natural gifts related to choosing a major occupation or transitioning into a field of interest. Involvement in career counseling should help strengthen confidence, produce new understandings, develop decision making skills and strategies, and generally produce greater ability to move ahead with life plans related to career and educational goals.
Back To Top

Pain Management and Achieving an Active Life-style - Chronic pain is a real and demoralizing condition that can become an overwhelming state of affliction. It is a condition that is under diagnosed and treated, causing intolerable suffering. More than 40 million people in the U.S. live with chronic pain. Over 50 percent have not been able to find adequate relief. Nearly all have switched caregivers at least once.

Using both a psychosocial and physical approach, patients can significantly improve by learning how to manage the body and brain's perception and response to painful stimuli, reducing the impact that pain has on their lives. The use of medication as a pain reliever is assessed and prescribed appropriately.
Back To Top

Assessment and Evaluation - Some clients who are dealing with a life crisis or a mental illness may require a psychiatric evaluation to help identify any problems that may be playing a part in their condition. When clients call the office they are referred to the Social Worker who takes a brief history and selects an appropriate evaluation venue. A physician or clinician who has specific training in conducting evaluations is assigned to the client's case. InnerWisdom specializes in a variety of areas.

Typical problems that may require an evaluation include:

Interpersonal difficulties
Mental or emotional illness
Financial Problems (referred to financial counselor at employee's expense)
Marital, Children, or family problems
Employment stress
Alcoholism or Drug use
Legal problems
Anxiety
Depression
Eating disorders and obesity
Crisis intervention
Any other kind of problem

Specific problems such as anger, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders and stress can be assessed through self-administered assessment tools, and can be accessed through the Health and Lifestyle Assessment. Interpretation of any Assessment Tool is best performed in conjunction with a professional mental health practitioner.

Controlling emotional symptoms such as depression or anxiety may be best accomplished through the use of medication or specialized treatment programs. The use of medication and other medical services will be assessed and ordered by a physician.
Back To Top

Anger Management - Conflict is a normal part of life and it occurs wherever there is a disagreement, clash, or competition between two or more opposing forces. At times, conflict escalates. Individuals who are not equipped to deal effectively may become angry to the point of destructive behavior. Sometimes anger is triggered by embarrassment or other emotional situations. In any event, the angry person may hurt others physically or emotionally. Anger can lead to violence.

Anger in any form is destructive to individuals and communities. Treatment can offer the development of new skills where people can learn to intervene on the anger cycle before it reaches a destructive point. People can also be trained to remain neutral and facilitate communication in order to help them achieve resolution to the problem/conflict.
Back To Top

Grief counseling - is a phenomenon that affects all people. Feelings of sadness, fear, anger, and confusion fill our hearts and brains as we search for a reaction to the emotions. In the process of connecting feelings, the mind searches through a lifetime of memories and identifies anything that produced similar feelings in the past, although unresolved. Unresolved grief is cumulative and cumulatively negative. While time dulls the pain, time does not, of itself, complete what is emotionally unfinished.

A primary feeling response to loss is fear. Anger is one of the most common ways we express our fear. While fear is often the emotional response to loss, isolation is frequently the behavioral reaction to the fear. Accessing the feelings, processing the fear and anger, and moving through the five stages of the grief process is the objective of grief counseling.
Back To Top

Biofeedback - is a self-regulation process that helps the client develop an ability to relieve the negative symptoms and stressful situations. Biofeedback may be with hypnosis to enhance the body/mind's ability to manage stress.

In the biofeedback process sensors measure muscle tension, skin temperature, or other body processes such as blood pressure. The readings are then translated through a computer program into signals that can be seen and heard. As individuals become accustomed to relaxing they gradually gain mastery over body processes and is able to relax even when experiencing stressful events, pain, or illness.
Back To Top

Hypnosis - may be utilized as a specific intervention in some cases. Hypnosis is neither sleep nor unconsciousness; it is an altered state in which a person has closed out all other distractions, and is free to focus intently on a particular subject, feeling, or memory. It is a normal state, and nearly everyone experiences some form of hypnotic state spontaneously, while daydreaming, reading, watching television, or even while driving.

Such focused concentration has important benefits, as people are more receptive to suggestions. Because of this receptivity, hypnosis has been used successfully to alleviate pain, reduce stress, overcome phobias, reduce depression and anxiety, relieve chronic headaches and other chronic pains, and assist in the recovery from such addictions as cigarette smoking, nail biting, food disorders, and chemical abuse.
Back To Top

Educational Workshops - Workshops, seminars, and Brown Bag Lunches promoting wellness and positive mental health provide valuable information to clients, interested individuals, and persons working 12-step programs. A variety of formats are used for the presentations, such as videos, lectures, and handouts. Time is left at the end of the presentation for questions and answers. InnerWisdom will design special programs to suit the specific needs of organizations and their staff. Seminars or workshops can be scheduled at the InnerWisdom Counseling Center's treatment site or at other sites around the community by request.

Examples of Workshops Are:

Organizational and Management Topics

Managing Change
Taking Charge of Change
Career Transition
Performance Management
Dealing with Difficult and Aggressive behavior
Developing a Drug and Alcohol policy

Trauma and Critical Events

Understanding Trauma and Planning for It
Peer Support Training
Violence in the Workplace
Suicide Awareness

Personal Well Being

Stress Management
Drug and Alcohol Awareness
Effects of Gambling
Understanding Depression
Planning for Your Retirement

Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) - The philosophy of the Employee Assistance Program is to provide effective strategies to encourage and assist employees to address and overcome personal problems that are affecting their work performance. Our Employee Assistance Programs provide a mechanism, within a supportive and confidential framework, to help employees recognize and acknowledge the problem and resolve the situation.

It is accepted that from time to time, even the best performers may encounter personal problems, which could affect work performance. When performance becomes adversely affected, however, intervention may be expected or required. This benefits not only the individual employee, but also the organization as a whole, as it contributes to improve staff morale and productivity.

Standards in terms of services are set and employees come to expect that the EAP will:

Provide a supportive and confidential framework in which employees can obtain assistance
Allow managers to manage their people resources in a constructive and consistent manner
Make available the widest range of professional support
Needs of employees vary but all situations will be assessed by a qualified professional.

Examples of problems employees may experience are:

Interpersonal difficulties
Mental or emotional illness
Financial problems
Marital, children and family problems
Employment stress
Alcoholism or Drug abuse
Legal problems
Anxiety
Depression
Eating disorders and obesity
24-hour crisis intervention
Any other concerns

Services for Outpatient Treatment Program Participants Include:

Assessment of symptoms
Evaluation of treatment options
Individual Therapy - adult and adolescent
Family Therapy and Couples Therapy
Addictions Counseling - including Eating Disorders
Vocational Evaluation and Coaching
Pain Management and achieving an active life-style

Treatment Interventions:

Managing medical & mental health problems
Finding life's meaning and purpose
Coping with difficult situations
Managing disappointment & failure
Improving the quality of life
Recovering from grief/loss
Relaxation/Stress management
Dealing with family issues

		Individuals who are relatively comfortable with many aspects of their lives, but are faced from time-to-time with specific events or relationships that require professional guidance or clarity often use Outpatient Treatment Programs. These counseling programs tend to be helpful to those individuals who require occasional participation in a therapeutic environment. Outpatient Treatment Programs allow individuals to work on a variety of personal or relationship issues such as loss, depression, careers or job loss while keeping up with day-to-day activities. Our Outpatient Treatment Programs (counseling) consist of group or individual therapy sessions or a combination of the two. Individual therapy is a one-on-one session with a professional counselor and is helpful when insight into a specific event or situation is required. Group therapy is a cost effective and efficient way to work through past issues that inhibit an individual's ability to achieve fulfillment, or for an individual who is experiencing an event that is life changing. Establishing a Therapeutic Relationship Psychotherapeutic relationships, clients and counselors, do not follow specific guidelines and may take some time to establish. Therapy sessions should be intriguing for the client, however they may initially prove to be erratic, inconsistent, and fraught with resistance. Therapy's goal is to assist the client to begin thinking about how they feel, why they act the way they do, and how various aspects and events of their life are related in ways they hadn't considered before. Clients also want to feel that they are gaining clarity into, or getting to the bottom of what they are feeling, how they are acting, and what they believe. What clients want most from therapy is the experience of relief and insight. Then they can go about the process of making the changes necessary to create a better life. Insight is the objective of psychotherapy and clients will know when it occurs. Insight is not like intellectual learning. It is a sudden feeling of clarity, sanity, hope, decisiveness, and energy. This is the course of healing that psychotherapy offers. When one feels the emotions they have repressed, and when one becomes aware of things they have avoided, they feel better, then they begin to function better. Psychotherapy and How it Works helps individuals know what to expect, allowing them to benefit more effectively from the therapeutic process. Problems addressed in the outpatient programs are: Mental health problems such as: Depression, anxiety, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, stress or related conditions Medical health problems such as: Dialysis, liver monitoring, organ transplant Potentially life threatening disease such as cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's Disease, Cardiovascular disease, hypertension, or stroke. Chronic or disabling pain Outpatient Treatment Programs Include: Individual Therapy - adult and adolescent - Assists individuals with problems and life's difficulties in a one-on-one therapy setting. Counseling for a variety of problems ranging from typical difficulties young adults experience to more serious problems associated with acute or long-standing psychological disturbances can be approached. Counseling services are oriented toward short-term interventions designed to help individuals develop a personal understanding to the source and treatment of their specific problems. Individual counseling addresses a variety of problems and concerns which may include depression, anxieties and fears, self-esteem issues, sexual assault trauma, interpersonal conflicts, career issues, eating disorders, stress management, family conflicts, physical/ emotional/ sexual abuse, and other distressing conditions. Back To Top Family Therapy - The aim of family therapy is for family members to understand and accept their individual responsibility in the emotional functioning of the family unit. By learning to recognize the emotional relationship patterns and how anxiety is handled in the family, individual family members can manage themselves in more functional ways. Relationships change and symptoms decrease as family members improve their emotional functioning. Back To Top Couples Therapy - Maintaining a loving relationship is no easy task. Demanding schedules and little extra time and energy may complicate communication. Couples who have been together for years may experience unresolved conflicts, or new couples may wonder how to ensure their relationship will last. Couples therapy helps partners learn how to manage conflict, avoid pitfalls, create a shared vision, and work together as partners. Back To Top Addictions Counseling - including Eating Disorders - Substance abuse and eating disorders are considered medical diseases because they affect the entire body. The crippling affects of the diseases include a gradual inability to function normally in every area of a person's life. Addictions affect people, families, communities, and nations and destroy millions of lives every year. They are progressive diseases and get worse over time. They never get better on their own. Addictions can progress from mild to severe and recovery requires a complete life-style change. Everything that interferes with sobriety and/or abstinence, including family members in some cases, must be changed before recovery can be successful. Addiction is considered a national epidemic and is the second leading cause of adult deaths in the country, led only by tobacco related diseases. Addictions not only destroy individual lives, but the lives of innocent people, as well. Back To Top Vocational Evaluation and Coaching - Focusing on the inherent nature and gifts of the individual, and finding a vocation that involves these strengths creates success and happiness, in relation to the working world. This means that the functions one performs through work comes naturally. It also means that work rewards the values that one has developed. For example, independence, job security, use of creativity, sense of adventure or variety can be important elements in one's job choice. One-on-one or group counseling is valuable in helping individuals explore natural gifts related to choosing a major occupation or transitioning into a field of interest. Involvement in career counseling should help strengthen confidence, produce new understandings, develop decision making skills and strategies, and generally produce greater ability to move ahead with life plans related to career and educational goals. Back To Top Pain Management and Achieving an Active Life-style - Chronic pain is a real and demoralizing condition that can become an overwhelming state of affliction. It is a condition that is under diagnosed and treated, causing intolerable suffering. More than 40 million people in the U.S. live with chronic pain. Over 50 percent have not been able to find adequate relief. Nearly all have switched caregivers at least once. Using both a psychosocial and physical approach, patients can significantly improve by learning how to manage the body and brain's perception and response to painful stimuli, reducing the impact that pain has on their lives. The use of medication as a pain reliever is assessed and prescribed appropriately. Back To Top Assessment and Evaluation - Some clients who are dealing with a life crisis or a mental illness may require a psychiatric evaluation to help identify any problems that may be playing a part in their condition. When clients call the office they are referred to the Social Worker who takes a brief history and selects an appropriate evaluation venue. A physician or clinician who has specific training in conducting evaluations is assigned to the client's case. InnerWisdom specializes in a variety of areas. Typical problems that may require an evaluation include: Interpersonal difficulties Mental or emotional illness Financial Problems (referred to financial counselor at employee's expense) Marital, Children, or family problems Employment stress Alcoholism or Drug use Legal problems Anxiety Depression Eating disorders and obesity Crisis intervention Any other kind of problem Specific problems such as anger, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders and stress can be assessed through self-administered assessment tools, and can be accessed through the Health and Lifestyle Assessment. Interpretation of any Assessment Tool is best performed in conjunction with a professional mental health practitioner. Controlling emotional symptoms such as depression or anxiety may be best accomplished through the use of medication or specialized treatment programs. The use of medication and other medical services will be assessed and ordered by a physician. Back To Top Anger Management - Conflict is a normal part of life and it occurs wherever there is a disagreement, clash, or competition between two or more opposing forces. At times, conflict escalates. Individuals who are not equipped to deal effectively may become angry to the point of destructive behavior. Sometimes anger is triggered by embarrassment or other emotional situations. In any event, the angry person may hurt others physically or emotionally. Anger can lead to violence. Anger in any form is destructive to individuals and communities. Treatment can offer the development of new skills where people can learn to intervene on the anger cycle before it reaches a destructive point. People can also be trained to remain neutral and facilitate communication in order to help them achieve resolution to the problem/conflict. Back To Top Grief counseling - is a phenomenon that affects all people. Feelings of sadness, fear, anger, and confusion fill our hearts and brains as we search for a reaction to the emotions. In the process of connecting feelings, the mind searches through a lifetime of memories and identifies anything that produced similar feelings in the past, although unresolved. Unresolved grief is cumulative and cumulatively negative. While time dulls the pain, time does not, of itself, complete what is emotionally unfinished. A primary feeling response to loss is fear. Anger is one of the most common ways we express our fear. While fear is often the emotional response to loss, isolation is frequently the behavioral reaction to the fear. Accessing the feelings, processing the fear and anger, and moving through the five stages of the grief process is the objective of grief counseling. Back To Top Biofeedback - is a self-regulation process that helps the client develop an ability to relieve the negative symptoms and stressful situations. Biofeedback may be with hypnosis to enhance the body/mind's ability to manage stress. In the biofeedback process sensors measure muscle tension, skin temperature, or other body processes such as blood pressure. The readings are then translated through a computer program into signals that can be seen and heard. As individuals become accustomed to relaxing they gradually gain mastery over body processes and is able to relax even when experiencing stressful events, pain, or illness. Back To Top Hypnosis - may be utilized as a specific intervention in some cases. Hypnosis is neither sleep nor unconsciousness; it is an altered state in which a person has closed out all other distractions, and is free to focus intently on a particular subject, feeling, or memory. It is a normal state, and nearly everyone experiences some form of hypnotic state spontaneously, while daydreaming, reading, watching television, or even while driving. Such focused concentration has important benefits, as people are more receptive to suggestions. Because of this receptivity, hypnosis has been used successfully to alleviate pain, reduce stress, overcome phobias, reduce depression and anxiety, relieve chronic headaches and other chronic pains, and assist in the recovery from such addictions as cigarette smoking, nail biting, food disorders, and chemical abuse. Back To Top Educational Workshops - Workshops, seminars, and Brown Bag Lunches promoting wellness and positive mental health provide valuable information to clients, interested individuals, and persons working 12-step programs. A variety of formats are used for the presentations, such as videos, lectures, and handouts. Time is left at the end of the presentation for questions and answers. InnerWisdom will design special programs to suit the specific needs of organizations and their staff. Seminars or workshops can be scheduled at the InnerWisdom Counseling Center's treatment site or at other sites around the community by request. Examples of Workshops Are: Organizational and Management Topics Managing Change Taking Charge of Change Career Transition Performance Management Dealing with Difficult and Aggressive behavior Developing a Drug and Alcohol policy Trauma and Critical Events Understanding Trauma and Planning for It Peer Support Training Violence in the Workplace Suicide Awareness Personal Well Being Stress Management Drug and Alcohol Awareness Effects of Gambling Understanding Depression Planning for Your Retirement Back To Top *Employee Assistance Programs (EAP)* - The philosophy of the Employee Assistance Program is to provide effective strategies to encourage and assist employees to address and overcome personal problems that are affecting their work performance. Our Employee Assistance Programs provide a mechanism, within a supportive and confidential framework, to help employees recognize and acknowledge the problem and resolve the situation. It is accepted that from time to time, even the best performers may encounter personal problems, which could affect work performance. When performance becomes adversely affected, however, intervention may be expected or required. This benefits not only the individual employee, but also the organization as a whole, as it contributes to improve staff morale and productivity. Standards in terms of services are set and employees come to expect that the EAP will: Provide a supportive and confidential framework in which employees can obtain assistance Allow managers to manage their people resources in a constructive and consistent manner Make available the widest range of professional support Needs of employees vary but all situations will be assessed by a qualified professional. Examples of problems employees may experience are: Interpersonal difficulties Mental or emotional illness Financial problems Marital, children and family problems Employment stress Alcoholism or Drug abuse Legal problems Anxiety Depression Eating disorders and obesity 24-hour crisis intervention Any other concerns Back To Top Services for Outpatient Treatment Program Participants Include: Assessment of symptoms Evaluation of treatment options Individual Therapy - adult and adolescent Family Therapy and Couples Therapy Addictions Counseling - including Eating Disorders Vocational Evaluation and Coaching Pain Management and achieving an active life-style Treatment Interventions: Managing medical & mental health problems Finding life's meaning and purpose Coping with difficult situations Managing disappointment & failure Improving the quality of life Recovering from grief/loss Relaxation/Stress management Dealing with family issues	Individual Therapy - adult and adolescent Family Therapy Couples Therapy Addictions Counseling - including Eating Disorders Vocational Evaluation and Coaching Pain Management and Achieving an Active Life-style Assessment and Evaluation Anger Management Grief counseling Biofeedback Hypnosis Educational Workshops Employee Assistance Programs (EAP)

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