What to expect at your first appointment.

When you book a session with our clinical therapists, we will do a mental health assessment to get to know you as an individual. 

During the first meeting, the therapist  will complete an intake consultation, this includes gathering your personal information, medical information and getting consent to provide therapy. We will also complete an informal, verbal assessment, this will be  used to evaluate your past challenges, personal strengths, natural supports or networks and treatment goal and plan. We  will try to first understand your problem, your mental health history and how your situation or issue is impacting your life right now. Together, we will come up with your unique treatment plan. 

If you choose to attend online therapy, you  have the privacy you need by using our HIPAA compliant, encrypted virtual room. Owl Video meets the highest level of global healthcare compliance standards, including support for PIPEDA and PHI in Canada. All Video Therapy sessions are fully encrypted to ensure a secure communication , so you’ll never have to worry about confidentiality. 

  Our Approach 

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT is a short-term, problem-focused form of behavioral treatment that helps people see the difference between beliefs, thoughts, and feelings, and free them from unhelpful patterns of behavior. CBT works by helping clients to understand their emotions or feelings can affect their behaviors’ or actions and physical reactions and helps the client to understand dysfunctional cognitive patterns. 

CBT  approach focuses on three important factors which were adopted from the Person-centered approach: empathy, genuineness, and positive regard. CBT is an evidenced based psychotherapy (Ung et al., 2015), 

CBT has a diverse range of methods and approaches;

•  Its emphases the importance of maintaining a therapeutic relationship. 
• CBT is goal oriented and focuses on the here and now
• The client’s psychological distress is often attributed to their unhealthy (or distorted) cognitive process. 
• CBT highlights how a client’s thinking impacts how they feel and act/behave 
• The behavioral intervention focuses on recognizing and altering unhealthy cognition. 
•  CBT is evidenced based and uses educational approaches (A. Beck & Weishaar, 2019 as cited in Corey, 2021). 
• CBT also helps clients to brainstorm, more realistic and practical solutions and long-lasting alternatives or interventions.

CBT is grounded in the belief that it is a person’s perception of events – rather than the events themselves – that determines how he or she will feel and act in response.

CBT is a useful tool that may help you;

• Manage symptoms of mental illness  
• Prevent relapse of  mental illness symptoms. 
• Learn new coping strategies with stressful life events
• Over come emotional trauma related to abuse, racial trauma or violence
• Conflict resolution and learn new ways to communicate effectively 
• Cope with loss or grief 
• Cope with a job loss or break-up

CBT can help with:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Relationship Issues
• Anger Management
• Panic attacks
• Obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD)
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Substance dependency
• Loss and Grief
• Self esteem and confidence

Most people with clearly defined behavioral and emotional concerns tend to reap the benefits of CBT. If any of the above issues resonate with you, I encourage you to try cognitive behavioral therapy.

With CBT, you’ll be able to adjust the thoughts that directly influence your emotions and behavior. This adjustment process is referred to as cognitive reconstructing, which happens through different CBT techniques.

Some CBT techniques are:

• Journaling
• Challenging beliefs
• Relaxation
• Meditation
• Mindfulness
• Social, physical and thinking exercises 

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is much more than sitting and talking about whatever comes to mind during a session. CBT sessions are structured to ensure that the therapist and the person in treatment are focused on the different goals of each session, which in turn ensures that each and every session is productive. 

If you or someone you know would benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy, please contact us today. We would be happy to speak with you about how we may be able to help. 

Sources;

Beck, A. T. (2019). A 60-Year Evolution of Cognitive Theory and Therapy. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(1), 16–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691618804187

Beck, A. (2011). Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics & Beyond. New York, NY: Guilford

Beck, A. (2005). The current state of cognitive therapy; a 40-year retrospective. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62, 953-959.

Borza L. (2017). Cognitive-behavioral therapy for generalized anxiety. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 19(2), 203–208. https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2017.19.2

Bennett, K., Manassis, K., Walter, S. D., Cheung, A., Wilansky, T. P., Diaz, G. N., … Warner, C. M. (2013). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Age Effects in Child and Adolescent Anxiety: An Individual Patient Data Metanalysis. Depression & Anxiety (1091- 4269), 30(9), 829–841. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22099