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Modalities
The names of therapeutic principles can often appear like an alphabet soup of acronyms! Below is a brief description of each of the principles I utilize in my practice.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) teaches people to respond to their unwanted emotions and thoughts with compassion rather than judgment. Using mindfulness techniques, ACT encourages people to be open and accepting of emotions and thoughts as they occur while choosing behaviors that support positive and healthy wellness goals.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a talk therapy that teaches people to identify and challenge unhelpful thought and response patterns and replace them with healthier adaptive responses and behaviors.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that uses mindfulness and self-soothing techniques to regulate intense emotional reactions and control impulsivity and self-harming behavior.
Radically Open Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (RO-DBT) is a relatively new branch of DBT, but whereas traditional DBT is effective at helping people have better control over their reactions to distressing situations, RO-DBT helps those who “over-control” their emotions and behaviors, such as eating disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorders.
Exposure with Response Prevention (ERP) is a subset of CBT used to treat anxiety disorders, such as phobias, eating disorders, and OCD. This therapy, conducted over a series of sessions, involves slow, incremental exposure to a source of anxiety in a safe and supportive environment. ERT helps people learn to reduce the intensity of their distress with the goal of overcoming their anxiety.
Health At Every Size (HAES) is a movement that has brought about a paradigm shift in treating eating disorders. Unlike traditional treatment programs that focus on weight, body size, and a narrow definition of health, HAES offers a set of principles that advocate for acceptance and respect of the diversity in body sizes and shapes. In therapy, these guide the process of eating disorder recovery by promoting health and wellbeing, incorporating principles of Intuitive Eating (learning to listen to your body signals, such as hunger, fullness cues, and food preferences), and learning to foster joyful movement.
If you have any questions about how I apply these principles in my practice, please send me a message.