Our Services.....

Children's Therapy

children's therapy

We believe that childhood should be a time for healthy growth and development with a happy family. For many children and teens, it is a time of great emotional stress. Children react to stress in many ways including withdrawal and acting out behaviors at home and school. Parents and school personnel want to help children become happy, loving adults, however in today’s society this can be a difficult goal. Our philosophy is to help children and families learn the life skills necessary to be successful.

Family Therapy

family therapy

Family counseling may help to promote better relationships and understanding within a family. It may be incident specific, as for example family counseling during a divorce, or a child experiencing trauma. Alternately family counseling may address the needs of the family when one family member suffers from a mental or physical illness that alters his or her behavior or habits in negative ways. The therapist often helps the family reflect on better ways of communicating with each other and because of that family counseling may in part be instruction and encouragement. In fact, family counseling often teaches family members new and more positive ways to communicate to replace old, negative communication patterns.

 

Marriage Therapy

married therapy

Marriage counseling seeks to identify areas of conflict and communication in a marriage and facilitate healthy ways of resolving them. If problems in a marriage aren’t identified or dealt with in a timely manner, they can grow out of control and bring devastation and possibly an end to the marriage. There is no such thing as a perfect marriage. Marriage counseling helps a marriage weather the storms and rebound stronger as a result of the counseling. Counseling helps a couple focus on their problems in a marriage and resolves them. Most problems include poor communication, a lack of intimacy, anger or nagging.

Individual Adult Therapy

adult therapy

Individual psychotherapy for adults offers a compassionate approach to therapy, which encourages clients to explore how limiting beliefs and trauma are held in the body—often below the level of conscious awareness. Specialties include trauma and PTSD; chronic illness including fibromyalgia, IBS, Lupus, insomnia, chronic fatigue and cancer.  Other issues addressed include grief and loss; emotional struggles such as shame, depression, anger and anxiety, and relationship problems.  Counselors have extensive post- graduate training in Self Regulation Therapy, a gentle approach that enables the nervous system to integrate overwhelming events and bring balance to the nervous system. Additionally they are trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).

 

Parenting your child

By Deborah Pettitt | February 16, 2024

This week I would like to focus on a book by Dr Brie Turns-Coe “Parent the Child You Have, Not the Child You Were”.  Dr Brie is a therapist at Family Christian Counseling Center who has extensive experience working with children and families. In her book she gives help to parents in understanding and responding…

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Trauma and the Polyvagal theory

By admin | January 23, 2024

In our treatment of children and adults that have experienced trauma we have come to see the importance of the polyvagal theory in understanding triggers and responses that occur in daily life. These triggers are autonomic responses based on earlier experiences. A young child may find the touch of a parent frightening because he/she was…

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ChatGBT

By Deborah Pettitt | December 28, 2023

Imagine a teenager who does not want to talk with his parents about an issue turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to seek help and understanding. I was just reading about students using chatGBT in place of a therapist.  A recent example of this is the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) support chatbot, which recommended weight…

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Spotlight on Mike DeMoss

By admin | December 1, 2023

Mike DeMoss is a great resource for men whether they need in depth therapy or just to connect with someone to help them through a rough spot. Mike has backgrounds in corporate business, church ministry and counseling. He has been married for 48 years and understands that marriage takes work to be successful. He and…

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Beyond Behaviors

By Deborah Pettitt | November 13, 2023

I have recently become exposed to the work of Mona Delahooke, PhD who has written two books. Both are about dealing with children’s behaviors. (Beyond Behaviors and Brain Body Parenting.) I will be writing a series of blogs about the valuable concepts that she details. In work with children recovering from early trauma I quickly…

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The Center and the NMT Model

By Deborah Pettitt | September 13, 2023

Deborah Pettitt, the director of the Center has been certified in Phase I and Phase II of Dr. Bruce Perry’s Neuro-sequential Model of Therapeutics. Dr. Bruce D. Perry is a prominent psychiatrist and neuroscientist known for his work in the field of childhood trauma and its impact on brain development and mental health. He is…

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Object Permanence and Constancy

By Deborah Pettitt | August 2, 2023

I recently took my 91 year old father who suffers from dementia to a restaurant. I gently guided him with his walker to a table and left him there as I went to order the food in a long cafeteria style line. I made sure that he could see me in line and every few…

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Summer Break

By Deborah Pettitt | May 24, 2023

Introduction: The summer break exciting for children, they are looking forward to a free and fun time.  However, without a sense of structure, children may find themselves with nothing to do or fall into bad habits. It is crucial to provide them with a well-defined routine that balances fun activities with enriching experiences. I thought…

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