What is Psychotherapy?

Therapy is a different experience for everyone based on their needs, resources, and motivation. However, there are certain aspects of therapy that tend to create positive results. Those include getting specific, being curious, a strong therapeutic relationship, and taking risks. Change does not happen in the abstract. In therapy, the patient is invited to help the therapist get to know how they experience themselves and their relationships in varying situations.  Being curious together of the person’s experience allows the therapeutic relationship to develop naturally. Fostering a healthy, attuned, and strong therapeutic relationship is central to our work here at Coastal, as it helps the patient to feel free to share, explore themselves, and take risks both inside of therapy and in their lives. Freud once wrote in a letter to Carl Jung that therapy was essentially a “cure through love,” which is something that he thought was self-evident. By experiencing something different in therapy, a person can begin to transform how they experience themselves and their relationships with others. It is also within the context of a secure and supportive relationship that we are able to offer the most specific and tailored descriptions of what would likely be most helpful for you.

What types of therapy do you offer?

There are certainly many types of therapy and being educated about the approaches may save you considerable time and energy. While we have been trained in and utilize the benefits of many theoretical orientations (e.g., CBT, DBT, & EFT) we primarily use psychodynamic psychotherapy, a type of therapy that believes that genuine and connected relationships create the most lasting and positive change.  To learn more about psychodynamic psychotherapy, you can read the article, The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy by Jonathan Shedler or watch this video about psychotherapy. It is a robust, evidence-based therapy that is well-suited for people who want to be understood and want a therapy that will help them transform their lives.