Individual and Family Therapy for Adults Do your thoughts seem to be working against you? Do you have trouble really believing in yourself and that you can reach your goals? Do you desire satisfying personal and romantic relationships?

You can quiet negative thoughts, increase control over your emotions, and decrease behaviors that are holding you back. In our sessions you will be able to identify what you want out of life and make it happen. An additional focus will be on strengthening your support system and making sure that you have people to encourage you in your community as you make positive changes.

Individual and Family Therapy for Children and Teens Are you confused about how to manage the behavior of your 21st century child? Are you struggling with parenting? Are Poor grades, low self-esteem or social problems challenging your child or teen?

Supportive Solutions teaches practical, easy to implement parenting strategies to help your child manage emotions, improve behavior at home and school and help families get along better. Appointments will use a mixture of parent meetings, individual work with children/teens to identify challenges and solutions and what positive changes you child would like to make, and full family sessions to comprehensively address problems.

What approach does Supportive Solutions offer if my child does not want to talk?
Supportive Solutions offers a play therapy, which can help children and teens express concerns when they cannot say their thoughts and feelings in words. Through play, children are taught more adaptive skills when there are emotional or social problems. Play offers a safe distance from a child's problem and allows them to express their true thoughts and feelings at their individual developmental level. This therapy also allows children to change the way they think about, feel toward, and resolve their problems. Once a child has worked through their problems through play, the therapist is able to help find solutions to address their problems in life. The positive relationship formed between therapist and the child can provide another dimension of healing. See more information below in the Play Therapy section.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

EMDR is an information processing therapy and uses an eight-phase approach to address past experiences that may be contributing to your problem today. For more information on the eight-phase approach please visit www.emdr.com. EMDR attends to: Past experiences that have set the groundwork for unhealthy beliefs and actions Current challenging situations that trigger unpleasant emotions, beliefs and sensations The positive experience needed to increase future desired behaviors while promoting mental health. EMDR has positive results when used to address: Grief and loss Trauma from assault Panic, anxiety, and phobias Experiencing natural disasters Accidents Unhealthy relationships Problems that were not helped by talk therapy Chemical dependency Enhancing performance for athletes, business professionals, and artists

Play Therapy Why Play? Play is a fun, enjoyable activity that elevates your spirit and brightens your outlook on life. Play expands self-expression, self-knowledge, and self-actualization. Play relieves feelings of stress and boredom, creates connections to people in a positive way, stimulates creative thinking and exploration, regulates emotion, and boost egos. In addition, play allows us to practice skills and role in a safe environment that are needed to be successful in life. Learning and development are best fostered through play.

Play Therapy can help children and others to:

• Take responsibility for their behavior and replace inappropriate behavior with more successful behavior
• Develop new and creative solutions to their problems
• Develop respect and acceptance of themselves and others
• Learn to experience/express emotion and to be empathetic with respect to the thoughts/feelings of others
• Learn new social skills

Who can benefit from Play Therapy?
Play Therapy has been used successfully with children whose problems are related to life stressors such as divorce, death, relocation, hospitalization, chronic illness, physical/sexual abuse, domestic violence, and natural disasters. Play is a natural process for children but play therapy can be helpful to people of all ages with a variety of presenting concerns.

How will Play Therapy benefit my child and family?
Research supports the effectiveness of Play Therapy with children experiencing a wide variety of social, emotional, behavioral, and learning problems, including: post traumatic stress, conduct problems, aggression, anxiety/fearfulness, depression, ADHD, impulsivity, low self-concept, reading difficulties, and social withdrawal.

Adapted from the Association for Play Therapy, Inc. www.a4pt.org