Services Provided:
- Individual Therapy
- Imago Relationship Couples Therapy
- Divorce Counseling
- Family and Imago Relationship Therapy
- Narcissistic Abuse Recovery for Women
- Women’s CDV DBT Groups
- Parenting with the Enneagram Groups and Workshops.
- Parenting Style Assessments
- Comprehensive Psychological Evaluations
Treatment Approaches:
- Mindfulness
- OCD Exposure Response Treatment (ERP)
- Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Trauma Informed Therapy
- Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Resiliency Focused Mentoring Training
Below are the descriptions of the evidence based treatments used in individual, couple’s, family and parent child therapy.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practiced skill of non-judgmental awareness and acceptance of our present moment experience, including all our unwanted thoughts, feelings, sensations and urges. Mindfulness is a tool that teaches us to accept all of our unwanted thoughts, feelings and unwanted internal experiences as part of life, regardless of whether they are "good" or "bad.”
Mindfulness originated in eastern philosophy and is based on the premise that our attachment to feeling good and our aversion to feeling bad are the cause of much our suffering. Much of the time, when things are difficult, we take up compulsive or avoidant behaviors to make ourselves feel better.
OCD Treatment
Virtually everybody experiences unwanted thoughts from time to time, for we human beings are not always in charge of what we think. But for sufferers of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), the problem is not just the presence of unwanted thoughts, but also the attention and meaning one gives to them.
Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
When clients begin to effectively recognize their distorted thinking and to more actively challenge their internal mental bully, therapy proceeds to what is known as Mindfulness-Based CBT. A simple way of describing Mindfulness for OCD is that it is learning the skill of nonjudgmental awareness and acceptance of one's thoughts and feelings.
Using Mindfulness, one learns to focus not on changing or eliminating unwanted thoughts or feelings, but rather on fully accepting their existence. After all, the thoughts and feelings are there whether we like it or not! The ultimate goal of Mindfulness for OCD and anxiety is for clients to hone their ability to fully accept the presence of their unwanted thoughts, and to recognize that just because they have these thoughts does not imply that they have meaning. A thought is not "good" or "bad,” it just "is.” In practicing Mindfulness, clients work on changing their perspective towards the unwanted thoughts that plague their mind, and in turn, changing their cognitive and behavioral reaction to them.
Trauma Informed Therapy
When clients begin to develop the ability to truly accept their unwanted thoughts, and to recognize that these thoughts do not automatically have meaning, treatment turns to the behavioral part of CBT, which is known as "Exposure and Response Prevention" (ERP).
The goal of ERP is straightforward - to expose one's self to the feared thought or situation, without performing any compulsive or avoidant responses.
Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT)
Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT) is a bio-psycho-social solution-focused approach to coupledom, combining psychology, sociology, anthropology, cosmology, neuroscience, interpersonal neurobiology and trans-generational science.
Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT) offers:
- An engine for change.
- A deeper understanding of what has happened in your relationship.
- Greater understanding of the part each of you has played in the problems.
- An explanation of why you are attracted to each other.
- Knowledge that you can carry with you in the future.
- The tools for you to become your own relationship expert.
- An environment within which you can have safe conversations.
- A future within which you co-create the healing of your childhood wounds.
See video: Why we pick difficult partners
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Dialectical means that 2 IDEAS can be both be true at the SAME TIME.
- There is always more than one TRUE way to see a situation, and more than one TRUE opinion, idea, thought or dream.
- Two things that seem like (or are) opposites can BOTH be true.
- All people have something unique, different and worthy to teach us.
- A life worth living has both comfortable and uncomfortable aspects (happiness AND sadness; anger AND peace; hope AND discouragement; fear AND ease, etc.).
- All points of view have both TRUE and FALSE within them.
- Examples: You are right AND the other person is right.
- You are doing the best you can AND you need to try harder, do better and be more motivated to change.
- You can take care of yourself AND be more motivated to change.
Discover skills available to work with your mind and body if you have experienced childhood trauma, anxiety and a variety of problems driven by negative affect and negative beliefs.
Parenting Workshops
Parenting Workshop Includes:
- Exploring Parenting Styles
- Discover The Parenting Style -Child Combinations
- Learn the skills on the most effective parent- child communication technique- Imago Relationship Therapy, The Dialogue
- Transform your parent- child relationship! Satisfaction Guaranteed.
PARENTING ISN’T EASY!
As parents we tend to believe there is only one way to parent our child- OUR WAY. If your way of parenting differs from your partners you may find yourself arguing about whose way is right or wrong.
In this workshop, therapists will discover through the Enneagram ancient personality system that there are nine different parenting styles each with its own positive and less productive characteristics that can be experienced differently by each child in the family.
Your personality acts like a filter with parenting and your inclined to emphasize the aspects of parenting that resonate with you and minimize the aspects that do not. If your child is not the same enneagram personality type you are, you might struggle to understand the motivations for the behavior. For example, the Enthusiast Parent seeks stimulation, fun, and adventure, and they don’t shy away from being the center of attention. But they may have a 5 Little Professor child who prefers quiet gatherings and wants to avoid “superficial” events.
Understanding the personality type of the child will help this parent learn how not to judge or question the child and act with more empathy and insight.
Help parents learn how to understand their children, using Imago skills through the lens of the 9 Enneagram parenting styles. Mirroring, Validation and Empathy are critical elements to understanding the nine parenting styles. This webinar will include small group discussions and examples of parenting challenges with the Enneagram using Imago to transform parent- child relationships.
Comprehensive Psychological Evaluations
We are committed to providing Comprehensive Psychological Evaluations
Dr. Shirley Amanda Saar & Dr. Linda Olson
Phone: (865) 235-2210 or 912-891-6261
216 East 41st Street Savannah, GA 31401
Email: drmandysaar@gmail.com
Email: drlindaolson@gmail.com