We Offer Office Visits for Greater Winston-Salem and Telepsychiatry Visits for ALL of NC
Our Approach to Counseling
During counseling, our expertise, passion, dedication, and client-centered approach shine, and we’ll match you with the right therapist to help with your unique needs.
- Confidentiality: What you say in the sessions will be private and confidential and it is only between you and the therapist.
- We make sure each individual feels heard, cared for, and understood. We provide a positive, nonjudgmental, and supportive environment to help you explore and meet your goals.
- Through your therapy sessions, you will gain insight about your own values and needs and develop strategies to live your life in accordance with those values.
- We will equip you with the tools and techniques that you need to move forward in a way that best suits your goals and creates positive change in your life.
- You and your therapist are equal partners in the process. To get the most from these sessions, you need to be open and honest, be willing to face your problems and make changes.
Types of Counseling We Offer
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) combines both cognitive therapy and behavioral therapy and focuses on how a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are interconnected. By identifying the pattern between these three key components, the certified counselors work for the patient to develop an understanding of how their thoughts, emotions, and behavior all influence each other. The patient can pinpoint the destructive thoughts that create negative emotions, which fuel problematic behavior. During counseling, the patient then learns how to restructure the way he thinks to develop healthier thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors.
Our counselor will help the client recognize one’s distortions in thinking that are creating problems, and then to reevaluate them in light of reality. CBT can help clients learn better ways of coping with their struggles, thereby relieving their symptoms and becoming more effective in their lives.
At Forsyth Psychiatric Associates, our therapists, psychiatrist, and other providers utilize CBT skills in helping clients deal with stress, depression, anxiety, bipolar, alcohol and drug use problems, relationship problems and personality struggles during counseling sessions.
Mindfulness Therapy
Mindfulness is a conscious awareness of our present moment and paying attention on purpose. Mindfulness suggests that the mind is fully attending to what’s happening, to what you’re doing, to the space you’re moving through. Mindfulness is to live in the present and current moment and focus on the here and now. Mindfulness is to observe and notice your thoughts, feelings and sensations and accept what they are nonjudgmentally. This includes openness and non-judgment about the experience. As clients become more attuned to what is happening in the here and now, clients can stay better grounded and react more appropriately to any situation. It is often coupled with other types of therapy, such as Cognitive-based Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The focus is on increasing our awareness of the thoughts, feelings, and actions that hinder our progress.
At Forsyth Psychiatric Associates, our therapists, psychiatrist and other providers utilize mindfulness skills in helping clients deal with stress, depression, anxiety, bipolar, alcohol and drug use problems, relationship problems and personality struggles during counseling sessions.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Dialectical means combining opposite ideas based on the assumption that two opposing things can be true at once. Dialectics are two opposing forces, feelings, or situations that happen simultaneously. A dialectic is rooted in the idea that everything is made up of opposites and that change occurs when there is a dialogue between the opposing ends.
DBT involves bringing together opposites and considering what is being left out in order to achieve a balanced and healthy life worth living. DBT focuses on helping people accept the reality of their lives and their behaviors, as well as helping them learn to understand and regulate their emotions, change their reactions or unhealthy behaviors, and build healthy relationships.
DBT combines aspects of mindfulness with many of the elements of cognitive behavioral therapy. In these sessions, our therapists will teach you skills to help enhance your capabilities in day-to-day life. Our therapists will teach you four skills:
- Mindfulness: This is the practice of being fully aware and focused in the present on purpose, being here and now instead of ruminating about the past or worrying about the future.
- Distress tolerance: This involves understanding and managing your emotions in difficult or stressful situations without responding with harmful behaviors.
- Interpersonal effectiveness: This means understanding how to ask for what you want and need and setting boundaries while maintaining respect for yourself and others.
- Emotion regulation skills: This means understanding, being more aware of and having more control over your emotions. Emotion regulation skills help you change unwanted emotions and reduce emotional vulnerability.
At Forsyth Psychiatric Associates, our therapists, psychiatrist and other providers utilize DBT skills in helping clients deal with stress, depression, anxiety, bipolar, alcohol and drug use problems, eating disorders, relationship problems and personality struggles during counseling sessions.
Substance Abuse Therapy
Problematic substance use, whether it be with alcohol, prescription drugs, or street drugs, requires a specific approach to treatment. Individual or group therapy with Licensed Clinical Addictions Specialists can provide patients with expert advice, resources, and coping skills. These clinicians can help you explore your internal and external triggers, develop healthier lifestyles and relationships, and build a substance-free life.
Want to make changes to your substance use but not ready to quit completely? Our clinicians are also experienced in harm reduction approaches, which focus on helping you reduce the negative health and social consequences of substance use through small, incremental changes.
Substance use clinicians may employ a variety of methods and interventions in treatment, including CBT, DBT, and motivational interviewing. People who struggle with substance use disorder often experience other mental health challenges, such as anxiety, depression, and trauma. Our substance use clinicians are experienced and licensed to work with both mental health and substance use disorders, ensuring that you are able to address not only your substance use but also any underlying factors contributing to use
At Forsyth Psychiatric Associates, our therapists, psychiatrist and other providers help clients deal with stress, depression, anxiety, bipolar, alcohol and drug use problems, eating disorders, relationship problems and personality struggles. For more information about substance abuse and addiction recovery, click here.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a type of couples and family therapy that focuses on improving relationships by strengthening the emotional bond and prioritizing emotion regulation skills. This approach is a collaborative and respectful approach to treatment that helps couples create positive shifts and deepen their bond, healing old emotional wounds caused by disappointments and alienation within the relationship.
At Forsyth Psychiatric Associates, our therapists can help couples interrupt unhealthy patterns in the relationship and move towards being more vulnerable and open with each other and to develop the skills needed to manage life’s stressors together in a healthy way.
Solution-Focused Therapy
Solution-Focused Therapy focuses on finding solutions to your problems in the present and moving you towards your future goals, not analyzing the ‘why’ behind problems and past life events.
Using Solution-Focused Therapy, our therapists will empower you to find practical solutions to the problems that you face through coaching and helping you to access your own problem-solving skills during counseling sessions
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a type of psychotherapy that helps people heal from traumatic and disturbing life experiences. EMDR therapy is an 8 phase, evidence based approach that helps to remove blocks to the nervous system caused by traumatic experiences to help clients access their natural healing abilities.
During EMDR sessions, the Forsyth Psychiatric clinician will help the client target specific memories and then will help the client reprocess the memories and disturbing feelings to reduce emotional distress through the use of specific eye movements or other forms of bilateral stimulation which help to rewire the brain.
Gottman Method Couples Therapy
Gottman Method Couples Therapy is an evidence based approach to help couples improve the quality of their relationship. Gottman Method Couples Therapy aims to improve communication, increase intimacy, respect, and affection, heighten empathy, and help couples work towards their shared life goals. This approach is based on the Sound Relationship House Theory, which evaluates and addresses multiple aspects of the relationship, including deepening friendship, sharing fondness and admiration, managing conflict, and making life dreams come true.
In this approach, Forsyth Psychiatry therapists will help you identify and change unhealthy patterns in the relationship and repair past hurts. This approach can be helpful in bringing emotionally distant couples back together, recovering from specific problems such as infidelity or money issues, transitioning into parenthood without losing sight of the relationship, and reducing conflict.
Motivational Interviewing
Motivational interviewing is a collaborative approach to treatment that focuses on helping you strengthen motivation and reduce ambivalence about making changes in your life. Our therapists can empower you to reach your goals by emphasizing how these changes have meaning, value, and importance in your life. This approach is particularly helpful if you are ambivalent about changing your behavior or lack confidence in your ability to create change.
At Forsyth Psychiatric Associates, our therapists, psychiatrist, and other providers utilize motivational interviewing skills to help patients deal with stress, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, alcohol and drug use problems, eating disorders, relationship problems, and personality struggles.