Building Your Story Through Therapy
At CoreStory, we believe that both listening and telling stories can be quite therapeutic. In treatment, listening is crucial. Often, clients seeking help with any of the areas mentioned (depression, anxiety, relationship conflict, emotion management, identity exploration, or change management) are focusing on just ONE “problem story” in their life, and listening can help them to explore alternative narratives, sometimes relieving stress or anxiety. Indeed, client stories often require very close and attuned listening to recognize relationship patterns, dynamics, and client strengths.
But listening attentively is, as they say, “only half the story.” Telling stories to good listeners can yield amazing effects. Even the person who believes he or she does not have a story to tell, with the right listening, and tools, will find it, and tell it.
Storytelling training
We offer targeted storytelling training which can be applied to personal narrative, business and educational storytelling, and other creative purposes. Our staff has worked in multiple domains in the realm of story and storytelling training, and we work to tailor our training to your specific needs.
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
In psychodynamic psychotherapy, clients attend 45 minute sessions once or twice weekly. These sessions are spent exploring areas of concern, problematic symptoms and their possible causes. Integrating some coping skills, communication skills, and psychoeducational interventions, the general aim of psychodynamic psychotherapy is for a patient to gain insight into internal processes, interpersonal patterns, and make changes accordingly in order to feel better.
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a more intensive form of individual therapy in which clients attend sessions 3-5 times per week for multiple years. Often, lying on a couch or comfortable surface (though not necessarily), patients work with an analyst to uncover and understand areas of mental life that under regular therapeutic or living circumstances, are not readily available to the conscious mind. The analyst may focus on action patterns or other non-verbal communication, identify dynamics underlying a client's general presentation to others, and name interpersonal patterns playing out between analyst and client during therapy.
Working together, psychoanalysis aims to connect these patterns to similar circumstances from earlier in the current client's situation. While the goal of analysis is to generally feel better, symptoms are not always the primary focus, as it is often the case that the underlying cause of psychological symptoms are unconscious dynamics. Psychoanalysis requires committment, time, and resources, and while it can be challening, the benefits can be quite profound.
Career coaching and educational consulting
Setting goals for your career, deciding on a major, or mulling over a career change can feel overwhelming. Our staff has experience in advising, career exploration and coaching, and will work with you to clarify your intentions relating to your work and life.
couples and Family counseling
Sometimes, therapy is most effective when treating a couple, rather than treating an individual. Couples counseling occurs for shorter stints, mostly weekly, and often focuses on communication patterns between a couple, developing improved communication and interpersonal skills, articulating demands and needs between a couple and making decisions about staying together, separating, or breaking up. Couples counseling typically lasts weeks to months.
Group therapy
Group psychotherapy is another form of treatment in which a group of people meet regularly to discuss a topic, learn something together, or generally connect to others. Periodically, we run psychotherapy groups that focus on storytelling, interpersonal process, and specific support for issues facing any group of people. These groups most often meet weekly or monthy and are administered on an availability basis. Please contact us for more information.