What is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor?
A huge body of research has demonstrated that counseling and psychotherapy can increase clients’ happiness, general wellbeing, life satisfaction, motivation, while decreasing both stress and anxiety. Counseling encompasses numerous techniques used to treat mental health, emotional and even some psychiatric disorders. Licensed Mental Health Counselors help you identify the things that make you feel positive or anxious and will help you accept both your strong and weak points. If we can identify our feelings and ways of thinking, then we can become better at coping with difficult situations. Licensed Mental Health Counselors have extensive training in psychotherapy, and have a minimum of Master’s level training.
Our psychotherapy services are usually covered under health insurance plans or workplace benefits under "Psychological Services” or “Psychotherapeutic Services”. Our team at Mind + Zest is passionate about helping you resolve your issues in a professional, non-judgmental, and safe environment.
Psychotherapy differs slightly from counselling in its nature, but the two can be used concurrently to provide a therapeutic treatment plan that is optimal for you.
What does a Psychotherapist treat?
Psychotherapy is used to treat many different problems. The most common reasons that people attend psychotherapy are listed below:
- Anxiety
- Career and Motivation
- Depression
- Eating Disorders
- Emotional Crises
- Emotion Regulation
- Family disputes
- Feeling ‘stuck’
- Low Self-Esteem
- Marriage and Divorce
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
- Personality Disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Problematic Substance Use
- Trauma and Abuse
What types of Psychotherapy Do We Offer?
- Adlerian Psychotherapy
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
- Existential Psychotherapy
- Humanistic/Person-Centred Psychotherapy
- Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
What are the Benefits of a Psychotherapist?
Attending psychotherapy offers many benefits. Therapy can give the client a fresh perspective on a difficult challenge and guide the client towards a solution. The benefits of psychotherapy include:
- Being able to better accept and understand yourself, your personal goals, and your values.
- Developing skills to improve current relationships.
- Helping clients develop new tools to overcome certain problems, such as a phobia, depression, or anxiety.
- Attaining a solution to the problems or areas of distress that made the client seek therapy.
The Psychotherapeutic Relationship
Research has demonstrated that one of the most important predictors of obtaining success in therapy and counselling is the relationship between you and your therapist. At Mind + Zest, we take this research to heart. Our counselors will collaborate with you to develop a therapeutic plan that is tailored to your strengths, goals, and desired areas of change. Typically, most clients will have a sense of when their counselling goals have been reached. This sense of success typically emerges when you have overcome significant issues in your life and notice new feelings and changes in your behaviours. You may notice an increase in energy, mood, enthusiasm, motivation, general well-being, and interest, and you will gain the confidence to tackle new challenges on your own.
Successful counselling also depends on sustaining contact and momentum with your counselor. By regularly attending sessions, progression and healing is attained more quickly than when sessions are spread far apart or occur irregularly. Most of our clients find weekly sessions the most productive, while some individuals find bi-weekly or twice-a-week sessions as most effective.
If you or someone you know is struggling, don't hesitate to reach out. The Mind + Zest team here to help. Click below and get connected to a therapist as quickly as today!
