What is "Psychotherapy"?

Psychotherapy is a process that that helps people find ways to deal more effectively with feelings, behaviors, relationships, and life issues.  Talking about these things is a personal experience that’s different for each person and therapist, and it increases our awareness about the source of our problems.

Treatment approaches vary among clinicians, and it is important that you find a therapist who has expertise in the issues for which you are seeking treatment. It is also very important to find a therapist with whom you feel comfortable and connect well.

Individual Adult Therapy

At All Things New, the initial 1-3 sessions are used to assess what the problem is. These first sessions are usually more structured and include some specific information gathering.  During this process, Kristin will discuss with you your reasons for seeking treatment, develop an understanding about your issues and formulate ideas about how treatment should proceed. We will then work together to determine the goals for treatment.  Kristin will work with you to explore past conflicts in relation to your current problem in order to make change possible. Kristin will listen and help you identify patterns of thinking, feeling and interacting that may be contributing to your current struggles. Deeper awareness and new insights stimulate psychological growth and change.  If the need arises, Kristin will consult with your psychiatrist or general practitioner for a medication evaluation. Treatment will continue until the troubling symptoms have been reduced or alleviated and you are consistently making use of more adaptive ways of coping with greater insight.

Couples Therapy

Divorce rates are soaring both outside and inside the Church. Families are in crisis, and couples face severe challenges in sustaining healthy and functional relationships. Unfortunately, couples often wait way too long before they seek help, allowing more time for damage to occur in the relationship and making it more difficult to correct the problems. Sometimes fear or uncertainty about what therapy is or what the process will entail results in couples staying stuck in their negative patterns rather than seeking help.

Communication problems are often a big contributor to the issues between couples. Couples therapy can help partners learn to be on the same "side" with each other and to communicate effectively in order to negotiate solutions and resolve conflicts.

Couple's therapy begins with an assessment of the relational issues and current dynamics of the relationship as well as historical information leading up the current dynamics. Kristin will work as an ally to both partners, helping each to explore and express his/her own inner experiences in such a way that it leads to new awareness and increased insight and ultimately, a new way of relating. At times Kristin will act as a "coach" helping and modeling for each partner how to communicate effectively with each other as they discover how to work together to find change and solutions to improve their relationship.

The length of treatment varies from couple to couple and is determined by several factors, including the length and dynamics of a couple's problems and willingness of both partners to commit to the process.

Pre-Marital Counseling

Pre-marital counseling can be invaluable to starting a life-long relationship on a healthy foundation. Marriages in our culture are demonstrating a 50% frequency in divorce, and only a portion of those marriage that do not end in divorce are happy relationships. With such a high statistical rate of divorces and unhappy marriages, there is also an increased chance that engaged partners have divorced parents or have never witnessed a healthy marriage. They may have no idea what a healthy marital relationship is, and may be more likely to repeat unhealthy relationship patterns in their own marriage.

Marriage research has shown that the risk of divorce is significantly reduced and marriages are much happier when they begin with solid pre-marital preparation to strengthen your relationship and establish healthy relationship sills before negative patterns and habits are established in the marriage. These negative patterns and habits can lead to big destruction and make issues much more difficult to resolve in the long run.

In pre-marital counseling sessions, Kristin will explore such issues and dynamics as compatibility, expectations, dynamics of families-of-origin, communication patterns, conflict resolution skills, and intimacy/sexuality issues. Kristin offers pre-marital counseling "packages" which consist of 10-12 sessions at a total reduced cost.

Kristin is a trained Prepare/Enrich facilitator.

Family Therapy

Kristin began her clinical training in Marriage and Family Therapy and has worked with hundreds of families over the past 10 years. She understands family and "system" dynamics and how these dynamics impact a person's current functioning. According to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT), "A family's patterns of behavior influences the individual and therefore it helps to consider the family system as part of the treatment plan. In marriage and family therapy, the unit of treatment isn't just the person - even if only a single person is interviewed - it is the set of relationships in which the person is embedded."

In some cases, Kristin may recommend that entire families come together for therapy sessions. In family therapy, Kristin will explore with you your family's ability to solve problems and express thoughts and emotions. She will explore such things with you as family roles and rules and behavior patterns in order to identify issues that contribute to conflict.

Family Therapy will begin with a thorough assessment of the issues and dynamics of your family. Kristin will likely use a genogram (a graphic picture, or diagram, of the family history) as an assessment tool for the purpose of understanding family relationships, patterns, and dynamics. Significant insights typically come out of this assessment process, and help inform the treatment goals for therapy. In the therapy process, Kristin will work with family members in their communication and behavioral patterns and will help families understand the dynamics in their family unit. Often the symptoms that one member of the family carries are facilitated by the dynamics within the family, and understanding (and sometimes changing) these dynamics can lead to a resolution of those symptoms.

Child / Adolescent Therapy

Kristin has worked with hundreds of children and teenagers between the ages of 5-18. Doing therapy with children and teenagers typically requires a different approach than doing therapy with adults. Children and teens are sometimes required by their parents or by Children's Division or the Juvenile Office to attend therapy. They typically do not like to talk about their problems. Kristin uses a variety of techniques to engage children and youth in the therapy process. She may use drawing or other forms of art or games and play to facilitate the therapy process. Kids tend to re-create their real worlds in these abstract ways, and the activities serve both to inform the therapy process and to take the pressure and intensity out of the face to face interaction with a therapist.

The initial child sessions will include an assessment period, just like the other types of therapy. Parents or caregivers will be included in this assessment period of up to three sessions. After that, Kristin will make a recommendation for the therapy process that typically includes a combination of individual and family therapy for the child. Kristin has found over her years of working with children in therapy, that individual therapy with children is much less effective than family therapy or a combination of individual and family therapy. Kristin has found that it is typically most effective to use a combination of the two, in which there will be family sessions some weeks and individual sessions with the child some weeks. During this time, there is a constant integration process in which Kristin builds a trusting relationship with the child and the family simultaneously. She works individually with the child to "get into the child's world" and see things through the child's perspective, and then supports the child in developing insight into his/her feelings and labeling and expressing those feelings in healthy and constructive ways. Kristin collaborates with the child in the process of bringing the information from individual sessions into the family sessions and supports the child and family in defining the meaning of this information and what to do in response to it. Sometimes Kristin acts as a "coach" in the process of problem-solving and building healthy communication habits within the family.

Examples of Issues ATN Can Help You With

Adjustment to Life Transitions / Mood Disorders / Anxiety Disorders / Grief and Loss / Anger Management / Personal Growth/Enrichment / Pre-Marital Counseling / Relationship Conflict / Couple’s Communication / Child and Adolescent Issues / Behavioral Problems / Foster & Adoption Issues / Family Dynamics / Parenting Skills / Trauma / Sexual Abuse / Physical Abuse / Self-Esteem Issues