Evidence-Based Therapy in Calgary
Proven therapy approaches to help you feel better, faster.
At Inner Balance Psychological Services, I use therapy approaches proven to help you through your mental health struggles. Evidence-based treatment methods empower you to create change, enhance your self-compassion, and connect you to what gives your life meaning.
Get Research-Backed Therapy and Start Living the Life You Deserve
Research-Backed Therapy Approaches
Not all therapy approaches are created equal. That’s why I use primarily evidence-based therapy approaches, proven to offer results with rigorous research trials backing their efficacy and effectiveness. We’ll spend time understanding what brings you to therapy and identify the thoughts and behaviors contributing to your distress. Together, we’ll build on your strengths and get you on the road to finding your balance and vitality.
After your initial consultation, I’ll develop an individualized mental health treatment plan customized to meet your needs. Your therapy plan could include any of the following gold standard therapy modalities:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Mindfulness
Exposure Therapy for anxiety or PTSD
Exposure and Response Prevention (E/RP) for OCD
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT is the gold standard for treating anxiety, depression, trauma, and other psychological illnesses. This evidence-based treatment approach examines how your thoughts, feelings, and actions influence each other.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focuses on changing your thinking patterns using targeted, practical therapy skills and techniques.
Your treatment may also include another type of CBT called Exposure Therapy. This type of CBT allows you to practice confronting anxieties that exist in your mind and learning how to handle them. We’ll also identify the activities you’ve stopped participating in and get you back to doing what you love.
Through our CBT sessions together, I’ll help you:
Learn to recognize the unhelpful thinking patterns creating problems in your life and evaluate how they are affecting you.
Develop healthier ways of coping with challenging situations.
Improve confidence in your abilities.
Understand others’ motivations and behaviors.
Learn how to change how you respond to anxiety-inducing situations by facing your fears in a systematic, safe, and controlled way.
During your CBT sessions, we’ll focus more on what’s going on in your life now instead of primarily focusing on early childhood experiences. We’ll identify triggers, your typical ways of responding, and the consequences of doing so. The skills and strategies you learn in therapy become “homework” outside our sessions. Together, we’ll help you move forward to regain control of your life and live it to the fullest.
Mindfulness
In psychotherapy, mindfulness is used to increase your awareness of the present moment. It allows you to see how your thoughts, feelings, and actions keep you from living a vital, fulfilling life. By learning to observe and remain nonjudgmental from your experiences, you find freedom from what feels inevitable.
Exposure and Response Prevention (E/RP) for OCD
This modality of cognitive behavioral therapy in Houston is considered the first line of treatment for obsessive behavior disorder (OCD). Exposure and Response Prevention, also known as ERP or E/RP, has been proven to help reduce OCD symptoms by safely and gradually exposing you to things that typically make you uncomfortable.
During your ERP sessions with me, we’ll work on diminishing what is keeping you entrenched in your negative behavior or thought cycle.
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for PTSD
When dealing with trauma and PTSD, one cognitive behavioral therapy approach I offer is called cognitive processing therapy, or CPT. This evidence-based approach teaches you how to evaluate and change recurring upsetting trauma-induced thoughts keeping you stuck and, thereby, perpetuating your distress.
Together, we’ll identify the “stuck thoughts” causing your symptoms of PTSD and how they are negatively impacting your life. In our CPT sessions, I’ll teach you the skills and strategies you need to handle these thoughts and help you develop more helpful thinking patterns. Through CPT for PTSD, you can learn how to shift your perspective, free yourself from trauma, and begin thriving in your life again.
Prolonged Exposure for PTSD (PE)
When you suffer from PTSD, you likely want to avoid any situation, place, or person that reminds you of your trauma. In doing so, you maintain the fear cycle, which is where Prolonged Exposure for PTSD comes in.
This type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Houston allows you to gradually approach trauma-related feelings, memories, and situations in a safe, healing place. PE directly addresses the causes of your PTSD symptoms and has been proven to reduce symptoms for good.
In our PE sessions, I’ll walk you through “imaginal exposure” and “in vivo exposure”.
imaginal exposure for PTSD: At your own pace, you describe your traumatic event in detail as if it is in the present tense. Working collaboratively, we’ll discuss and address any emotions that arise
in vivo exposure for PTSD: This part of PE takes place outside of our sessions together as a type of “homework.” In our sessions, we identify which stimuli you’ll confront and determine how you’ll do so. Gradually, you’ll confront your fears and practice healthy coping strategies learned during our sessions.
