Therapy Group for Depression and Mood Disorders

Posted on April 5, 2012 by emilyk

New Therapy Groups for Depression and Bipolar Forming

Feeling low all the time? Unable to find joy in life? Difficult to get out of the house?

Do you have mood swings that interfere with work or relationships?

Psych Choices is offering psychotherapy groups for people who deal with depression and bipolar disorder to provide support, peer education, and direction for helping you cope with and heal from this suffering.

Group therapy is helpful for people who deal with depression and bipolar disorder because it provides a supportive, non-judgmental, and informative atmosphere where one can make change. Insights from people going through the same thing and a trained and experienced psychotherapist can help you get better.

The first group will meet weekly on Thursday mornings at Psych Choices (5060 State Rd, 2nd Floor, Drexel Hill, PA) from 11:30a to 12:30p or 1:00p (depending on group size). We hope to also offer an evening group in the near future. Groups will be open-ended and members can join or leave at any time; weekly attendance is encouraged but not mandatory.

Some of the topics that can be discussed include but are not limited to:

What is depression? What is bipolar disorder? How are they similar and different?
Living beyond stigma
Changing your thoughts can help to change your mood
Predromal, Syndromal, and Postdromal symptoms
Managing concerns about family, friends, and career
Coping with suicidal thoughts
How can mood charts be helpful?

The groups will be led by Nate Prentice, MSW, LCSW, CAS-PC Student (http://nateprenticetherapy.com), a licensed clinical social worker and a psychotherapist who has successfully helped people who deal with depression and bipolar disorder to create a new life for over 22 years.

Time to come out from the darkness. Time to come out from the blinding light. Time to move into a place where you are content with a healthy, productive, and supported life. Group therapy is usually covered by your insurance, or call to find out about our sliding scale fees. Speak with your therapist or medication provider if you are interested. Or, call Psych Choices at 610-626-8085; press “0″ for the front desk to let us know of your interest.

Genetic Testing Can Guide Psychiatrists in Choosing Medications

Posted on February 8, 2012 by emilyk

Psych Choices of the Delaware Valley now offers pharmacogenetic testing

Personalized Medicine

Psych Choices physicians and nurse practitioners can now order a special test to help determine the best medication for you. Personalized medicine draws upon the fact that every patient is a unique individual. This individuality is written into our genes, and can influence the efficacy of medications, influence the development of serious drug side-effects, and increase the risk for drug-to-drug interactions. Pharmacogenetic tests like AssureRx’s GeneSightRx^®may help physicians prescribe appropriate therapies for their patients by accounting for their individual genetic differences.

GeneSightRx^®

GeneSightRx is a laboratory- developed genetic test that uses state-of-the-art technology to measure and analyze clinically important genetic variants in psychiatric medicine. The results of the report can help a doctor understand the way a patient’s unique genetic makeup may affect how certain psychiatric drugs work. The analysis is based on pharmacogenetics, FDA-approved manufacturer’s drug labels, scientifically valid published reports, and proven pharmacology. Quick turnaround time, combined with a customized report of the patient’s genetic makeup, clinical experience, and other factors can help a physician make personalized drug treatment choices for each individual patient.

About AssureRx Health, Inc.

AssureRx Health, Inc. is a personalized medicine company that specializes in pharmacogenetics and is dedicated to helping physicians determine the right drug and manage side-effects for individual patients suffering from various medical conditions. Learn more at www.assurerxhealth.com

Psychological Testing at Psych Choices

Posted on February 6, 2012 by emilyk

One of our Psych Choices therapists, Dr. Robert Vandercook, is also skilled at the psychological testing which may be useful or required in certain employment or educational settings. He can administer standardized tests including the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), the Personality Assessment Inventory, and intelligence tests including the Wechsler Intelligence Tests for adults or children, and the Wechsler Achievement Test. These tests are not covered by health insurance. Cost will vary depending on the nature of the testing.
If you come in for the MMPI personality test, which is required for certain jobs under Pennsylvania Act 235, you will be interviewed by Dr. Vandercook and then given about an hour and a half or more to complete a written test. After you leave, Dr. Vandercook will then carefully score your test as he has been trained to do, then write a report in which he interprets the test results.
If you come in for intelligence testing, Dr Vandercook will spend several hours (over the course of a couple of sessions) administering a series of tests. These tests may include written sections (depending on your age) but also will include verbal questions, puzzles, structured activities and picture identification. The tests help to measure several different kinds of intelligence such as your ability to reason, to solve visual problems, to find similarities between different things (for example “How are an apple and a pear alike?”), your vocabulary, your understanding of metaphor (“What does it mean to kill two birds with one stone?”), your memory and concentration, your general knowledge of the world, and your speed at processing simple math problems (such as “How many 45 cent stamps can you buy for a dollar?”) Dr. Vandercook will then score your test and write a report in which he interprets the results and explains what the results mean in terms of your ability to function at school or work.

“A Gut Feeling” – Link Between the Gut and the Brain

Posted on January 19, 2012 by emilyk

By Connie Opfell, LCSW

An interesting article, “A Gut Check for Many Ailments,” in The Wall Street Journal this week discusses the research that is looking at communication between the gut and the brain. Many people with psychiatric and brain conditions also report gastrointestinal issues – this new research indicates problems in the gut may cause problems in the brain, just as a mental ailment, such as anxiety, can upset the stomach. For example, researchers are looking into possible connections between autism and gastrointestinal ailments.

How Psychotherapy Can Help

Posted on January 11, 2012 by emilyk

by Nate Prentice, LCSW and Emily Kahn-Freedman, LMFT

If you are reading this, it is probably because someone suggested that you may benefit from talking with someone about what is bothering you. Perhaps you have tried other avenues, including medication, but feel stuck and are interested in exploring other options. How can “just talking” be helpful?

In scientific studies, we’ve learned that for many mental health concerns, psychotherapy is just as effective as medication alone in reducing people’s symptoms. We’ve also found that anxiety and depression respond even better to a combination of medication and psychotherapy, than to medication or psychotherapy alone. Why is this?

Many people do get a sense of relief from taking medication. However, without a skill set for dealing with underlying issues, the symptoms may continue or recur. In addition, some people may have tried ways of coping that create their own problems, such as substance abuse, yelling at family members, workaholism, etc. Psychotherapy can help people learn more effective strategies. If you are computer-savvy, you may understand it this way: Medication helps with the hardware. But therapy helps with the software!

How do you choose a psychotherapist? There are several kinds of professionals trained to do psychotherapy. These include psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical social workers, and marriage & family therapists, among others. The specific degree a person has may be less important than how experienced and skilled they are, and how comfortable you feel with them.

What is a typical psychotherapy session like? Gone are the days of lying on the couch. Today the sessions are usually held face to face. In the first session you may be asked a number of questions to help the therapist understand your issues and what outside influences are impacting on your issues. During or after that session, a plan for addressing these issues will be created.

Therapy sessions will then focus on how you are coping with your issues, as well as reasons why you have the issues. Some therapists will be more concerned than others with helping you explore “why” you have a problem. When I work with people who are desperate to find the root of a problem, they often end up in “analysis paralysis” because just knowing the root of a problem doesn’t always solve the problem. You may need to learn how to put out the fire before you try poking in the embers!

If you’re not sure whether therapy can be helpful, it may make sense to speak with a therapist once or twice just to see how it feels and what you think. Many people “shop” for a little while, trying a session or two with several different therapists until they find the right fit. If you’d like to make an appointment with one of the professionals at Psych Choices, just call our office at 610-626-8085 and press Extension 205 to speak to our intake coordinator.

Expert on borderline personality disorder reveals her own past

Posted on December 24, 2011 by emilyk

People with borderline personality disorder suffer greatly, often experiencing intense emotions that are so painful and so difficult to control that they may be suicidal or try to harm themselves by cutting or burning themselves. They have difficulty maintaining a clear sense of who they are, and it’s hard to maintain stable relationships. Their own lives can be like a living hell, and those who love them can also suffer due to their ups and downs.

Marsha Linehan is an esteemed psychologist who designed a form of therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, which teaches people to accept themselves and to better manage their intense emotions. In this article from the New York Times, she reveals that she herself suffered as a young woman with this illness, attempting suicide numerous times. In a video which accompanies the article, she describes the religious experience which started her healing, and ultimately led to the beginning of the therapy methods she pioneered.

Recently she has found that sharing her own story helps people to be hopeful that they, too, can feel better someday.

Read the article and see the video here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/health/23lives.html?pagewanted=3

Couple Therapy: Are you ready for it?

Posted on December 14, 2011 by emilyk

by Emily Kahn-Freedman, Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist

It’s been a long day and you’ve had another long argument with your spouse. You’ve aired all your grievances and made crystal clear all the ways he has to change. Finally you’ve decided that it’s about time to look for help – marriage counseling might fix the problem! A therapist might convince him that he has to change!

But are you really ready for couple therapy?

You may find that in couple counseling, you are asked to do something more than list your partner’s faults. In fact, you may not be asked to list them at all. Instead, you may have to take a long hard look at yourself – and at the ways you, yourself, might have to change, in order to be a better partner for your partner! Because for marriage counseling to be successful, BOTH partners have to do 100% of the work.

Psychologist Erich Fromm wrote in his book “The Art of Loving” that love is comprised of 4 elements: care, respect, responsibility, and knowledge. If you care, your partner’s feelings matter to you – as much as your own. If you respect, you are acknowledging your partner’s right to be who he or she is – even if that means they are sometimes disagreeable or annoying. If you take responsibility, you admit that your words and your actions have an impact on your partner, and you take responsibility for those words and actions. And knowledge implies that you have taken care to really get to know your partner and to understand as deeply as possible what it is like to take a walk in his or her shoes.

If your relationship is hurting you both, and you are ready to think about your own words and behavior, then maybe it’s time to schedule that appointment.

A Quick and Effective Way for Dealing with Overwhelming Anxiety or Worry

Posted on November 17, 2011 by emilyk

by Nathaniel S. Prentice, MSW, LCSW

Feelings of overwhelming anxiety can be very uncomfortable. When I was in graduate school, I found myself easily overwhelmed by the fact that I would have 2-3 20 page papers due a week, and I would have problems sleeping as a result of worrying about the schoolwork that was due. Falling asleep was a chore, and I would wake up in the middle of the night wondering how I was doing in school.

Fortunately, I discovered a method that is very helpful for dealing with anxiety, stress, and overwhelming worry. I don’t have a name for it, but essentially it localizes the anxiety and shoots it out of you, then gives you a space to receive strength and courage that you may need to cope with the situation that creates anxiety. It is based in part on hypnosis protocols and “grounding” techniques used in therapy with people who have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as a therapy technique called Focusing, created by Eugene Gendlin.

I’m sharing it with you in the hopes that you will benefit from it. In sharing it, I hope that you will contact me and let me know what you think of it. I can be reached at nprentice@psychchoices.com if you have questions or comments about it.

These are the steps that I use when I do it and when I teach it to clients of mine.

Notice your anxiety and rate its uncomfortableness on a scale of 1-10, 10 worst.
Localize your anxiety: If it was in a place in your body, where would it be? What shape would it have? Would it be a solid, liquid, or gas? What color is it? Does it have a texture?
Imagine hooking up tubes, or a line of light, or some other similar image to it. Imagine the tubes going from the object you identified to your shoulder and out through your index finger to the furthest spot on the horizon that you can imagine.
Imagine the object of anxiety moving along the tube on its own (you don’t have to force it–it wants to go of its will) until it is at the tip of your index finger.
Flick your index finger in the direction of the spot on the horizon and imagine the object of anxiety or worry flying out beyond the horizon to the furthest spot in the Universe.
Repeat steps 1-5 as needed until you feel the anxiety is pretty much gone.
Put your palm up in a receiving gesture and ask God, your Higher Power, the Universe, or your Best Self to give you the strength and courage you need. Sit and wait for it until you feel at least some change.
When you are ready, notice how you feel and rate its uncomfortableness on a scale of 1-10, 10 worst to see if there is some change from your first score.
Notice any new insights you may have now that you are more free of anxiety.

This technique is best used when you are feeling overwhelmed by anxiety or worry for a quick break from the anxiety creating thoughts and feelings. I hope you enjoy it and would love to hear your feedback on it.

Psych Choices News Flash: New Therapy Group to Begin

Posted on October 31, 2011 by emilyk

Are you struggling with a loved one, be they a family member or a friend, who you think has a drug, alcohol, or other compulsive behavior problem (gambling, Internet pornography, food, or even overworking)? Have you spent too much time worrying about, losing sleep, or arguing with this person about their behaviors? Do you cover for them to their employers or family when they are too drunk, hung over, or tired to show up? You may have gotten to the point where you feel you must lie to your children about why this person is not there for them. Or perhaps you avoid social or family occasions because the person’s behaviors or situation have become too embarrassing. Alternatively, you may have become accustomed to making sure the person has had a meal before going out so they won’t get too drunk, too soon. Maybe you have tried pouring the bottle down the sink, or flushed their drugs down the toilet, only to have them find out, become enraged, and then binge? Their behaviors may have cost you untold broken promises, unpaid loans, stolen family heirlooms, bail for DUI arrests, or high credit card debt to keep the family afloat.

If any of these events sound familiar, you may be interested in joining a therapeutic support group at PsychChoices for families and friends affected by drug and/or alcohol abuse, and other compulsive behaviors.

This group is being run by Valerie Glauser, LMFT, in practice with PsychChoices for almost 5 years. While she treats a variety of diagnoses in individual, couple and family settings, her great passion and expertise is in working with families of those with alcohol, drug or other compulsive problems, whether or not the individual has chosen to seek or has been successful in the treatment of their condition. She received her Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy in 2000, during which she completed all her internships in a variety of drug and alcohol treatment facilities. Through her training and consequent clinical practice in a variety of settings, she has come to realize that a greatly underserved population is the families and loved ones of those who abuse substances, or have developed compulsive habits that significantly affect their and their families’ lives. Often, these family member feel deeply ashamed and embarrassed by their loved ones, become isolated, and believe they are alone in their struggles with the consequences of their loved ones’ habits.

The reality is that these families are painfully common even as they suffer in isolation, and can greatly benefit from the support of each other and a trained facilitator in a non-judgmental, confidential setting.

If you choose to join this group, you will receive both the support of others in similar situations, along with the guidance of a knowledgeable facilitator who together, can help relieve the dreadful stigma you bear, while you learn coping, safety, and empowerment skills that can help you get back some peace of mind, while increasing the probability that the troubled person will seek the help they need.

Your insurance may cover group treatment. Alternatively, we will establish a reasonable fee for those who are not covered.

If you are interested in joining this group, please speak to your therapist or medication provider. You can also call Valerie Glauser at 610-626-8085 extension 207, or email us at generalinfo@psychchoices.com with your contact information.

Psych Choices Blog

Holistic Mental Health Care in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania