Individual Therapy
Individual therapy services for adults addressing a wide range of difficulties such as depression, anxiety, anger, addiction, abuse, relationship problems, mood instability, stress, self-esteem, grief and loss are provided. Therapy for children includes behavioral concerns, self-esteem issues, blended / step-families, issues of abuse, depression and anxiety.
Specialized training:
Psychodrama- Psychodrama is a therapeutic method used in a group or individual settings that incorporate psychology and theater. It infuses action methods into psychotherapy by facilitating experiences that encourage the enactments of new skills. This is done through guided exercises dramatizing conflict issues, self-expression difficulties and development of new insights. Often words alone are not enough to capture one’s experience and work through them. In these instances, putting our experiences into action can be just as healing as talking about them. Since 2008, Dr. Elgueta maintains an ongoing commitment to continuing to build her skill in Psychodrama as a compliment to psychotherapy.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is psychotherapeutic technique designed to help individuals adopt more productive and healthy ways of responding to emotionally distressing situations. In addition to helping clients suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder, DBT has been shown to be effective in helping individuals suffering from a variety of difficulties, including Depression, Bipolar Disorder, PTSD, Eating Disorders, or Alcohol and Drug Abuse/Addiction, among others.
DBT emphasizes the acquisition of skills to better cope with stressful situations. They are didactically taught in a group format with its implementation covered during individual sessions. DBT skills are geared to helping individuals regulate and control emotional reactions to break self-destructive behavior patterns. The topics covered include relaxation and mindfulness based techniques, distress tolerance skills, and interpersonal skills designed to help improve relationships with family, friends, and significant others.
Trauma-Focused Therapy- Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR), is an evidenced-based, rapid (compared to traditional therapy) method of effectively reducing traumatic stress from emotionally and/or physically painful events in the past. TIR is a memory-based, brief therapeutic intervention for children, adolescents, and adults who have experienced crime-related and/or interpersonal violence, war, disasters, torture, childhood abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, traumatic bereavement, or other severe or shocking events. The program is designed to resolve symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and low expectancy of success (i.e., low self-efficacy) by integrating dissociated cognitive and emotional aspects of traumatic memory.
In addition to being a certified TIR facilitator, Dr. Elgueta is also certified to train other clinicians with this approach. For more information on TIR, visit www.tir.org.
Family Therapy
Building on the assumption that each family member is highly invested on each other’s wellbeing, the focus in sessions is on helping families identify the ways they are inadvertently getting in each other’s way towards growth or investing in ineffective patterns of relating. Bringing the whole family together can help combine skills and insights needed to get through these roadblocks.
Family Therapy offers an environment where each member can communicate their perspective, with the help of a professional, and observe what role they play in the problem as well as the potential solution. By getting to understand what other family members are thinking and feeling, everyone can obtain a clear understanding of what behaviors need to change. Dr. Elgueta has received extensive training in family therapy.
Couple’s Therapy
Emotion Focused Couple’s Therapy- Emotion Focused Couple’s Therapy (EFT) focuses on identifying negative communication patterns and enhancing connection between couples. Emotional pain in couples results when needs go unmet and we begin to feel unimportant, alone, ignored, and uncared for. Every couple goes through ups and down in their relationship. Yet healing cannot happen until we look at what’s been hurting us and create a different way of dialoguing with each other.
Building a deep, lasting and meaningful relationship means reaching a mutual level of intimacy, trust and support. To achieve this, it is first important to recognize negative conflict patterns and relationship wounds that get in the way. Couple’s work entails strengthening this emotional attachment by side stepping old conflict patterns and learning new ways of being emotionally connected.