Therapy Services

Our approach at GPA is simple: we work with you to find the best possible version of yourself. We strive to maintain an open and collaborative dynamic that facilitates the co-creation of healthy goals and encourages meaningful progress towards those goals. It is our mission to pursue balance and to foster peace, both inside and out. 

There is significant evidence showing that the most important factor in successful therapeutic outcomes is the “goodness of fit” in the relationship between therapist and patient. At GPA, we value this match and make it our first goal to pair your unique experiences with one of our unique therapists. Collectively, our staff has over 50 years of experience working in diverse settings with patients of all backgrounds. GPA offers a variety of therapeutic modalities, the most popular of which include Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Person-Centered Therapy, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). An understanding of these evidence-based practices is essential and supports our collaborative process and humanistic approach that sets us apart and leaves patients with a uniquely supportive experience.

adult

There are various aspects of adult life that demand attention on a daily basis that will often begin to weigh on our bodies and minds if not properly managed. In today's fast-paced and highly demanding world, it has grown increasingly clear that to maintain one's mental health is equally as important as maintaining one's physical health. In addition to the day-to-day stressors that can create overwhelming feelings of anxiety, exhaustion, or sadness, you may also be managing major life events such as coping with loss, relationship issues, problems in your professional life, or any other trauma that makes dealing with the day seem difficult or even impossible. Our aim is to empower you to be able to manage daily stress as well as to provide support and guidance through the major events you may be experiencing. 

It can be hard to find balance when it feels like your are being pulled in every direction at once. Navigating one's own body through adolescence can be a full time job on its own, when you start to consider the social, academic, parental, and now even digital pressures and expectations faced by kids everyday, it becomes easy to see why many are left feeling overwhelmed. Skills like controlling one's emotions and managing times of transition aren't easy for anyone, and can be especially difficult for young people who, through no fault of their own, have yet to develop them sufficiently. The key to our adolescent and child therapy is simple; our therapists were children and adolescents once too. In addition to their professional experience, our therapists remember what that was like and can use their own experiences to relate with younger patients on a deeply personal level that allows for an open and valuable interaction. Our staff can meet the needs of children as young as 7 years of age and regularly accompanies patients from adolescence and into adulthood.

couples

Couples therapy is designed to support and guide you and your partner through the challenges that go along with sharing oneself. GPA works with couples of all backgrounds and orientations to identify challenge areas of the relationship and to resolve conflict in a way that is both positive and collaborative. Using what is called a strengths-based approach, we help couples to develop and grow the positive aspects of their partnership, enabling both partners to remain open and actively engaged in making progress. First and foremost, we are here to facilitate a healthy dialogue because, regardless of the stage of the relationship, beginning, middle, or end, the first priority is always for the lines of communication to remain open.

A group therapy setting can be ideal for individuals to gain a peer perspective and to encourage pursuing positive change in their own lives. Working with a therapist in individual treatment can be impactful, but working and interacting with others who are struggling with similar issues can offer valuable insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Here at GPA we facilitate small group sessions where individuals going through similar situations can share their own experiences, gain new perspective, and work in a cooperative manner towards independent goals. Even the simple knowledge that you are not alone in how you feel or what you are going through can often be enormously comforting. This peer interaction coupled with our therapists guidance during what could otherwise be difficult conversations can make all the difference in overcoming your personal struggles and developing lasting coping techniques.

family

The only thing harder than navigating one's own life is sharing that experience with others. The family dynamic is unlike any other in that there is an overt feeling of obligating and responsibility that often would take years to develop in a different kind of relationship. For this reason, healthy communication and peaceful conflict resolution are absolutely essential in maintaining a healthy family. Our approach stems from the idea that family members cannot be understood in isolation and must instead be viewed as interconnected parts of a complex unit. We invite families to work together as a whole or in part to process emotions, to interact freely, and to take advantage of our relaxed and supportive setting to hold conversations that they may not have held otherwise.

Treatment Specializations

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)  is a cognitive-behavioral approach that puts an emphasis on changing patterns of behavior through increasing the ability to regulate emotions. DBT is a support-oriented, collaborative, and skills-based process. In session, our therapists work with you to develop skills in mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation as well as developing other strategies to achieve greater balance in yourself and in your relationships.

Psychodynamic Therapy  focuses on unconscious processes as they are manifested in a person’s present behavior. The primary goal of psychodynamic therapy is to achieve self-awareness and an understanding of the influence it holds over our current behavior. Self-awareness and insight are integral parts of the psychodynamic process, as they enable unconscious elements of one’s life to become a part of their present experience. This modality assumes a more open ended structure in hopes of allowing patients to discover and understand how their behavior and mood are affected by unresolved issues and unconscious feelings.