Hillary E. Hess

There are many treatment options for depression, from a Cognitive Behavioral perspective therapy can offer a structured space to share thoughts and feelings about what is happening in life, while working towards tangible goals and changes you'd like to see in your life. In therapy, you can gain insight into how you're feeling, and learn and practice skills to meet goals for yourself day to day. Medication management with a trained professional can help and shows best outcomes for those who are also in therapy. For treatment resistant depression, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, and Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy are also options.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy is an evidenced based therapeutic approach that has been shown to be most effective for individuals struggling with anxiety and depression. This approach can be structured to identify, and work towards goals for managing symptoms in about 16-20 sessions, weekly. This varies person to person, based on goals, ability and readiness to learn, practice and implement strategies for change.

Anger can often be described as the tip of the iceberg when it comes to feelings; this means there are often a variety of other difficult feelings underneath the anger. For children they are still learning how to verbally communicate their experiences and figure out what they are feeling and why. In children, behavior is often the first way they communicate what is happening for them, and what they may need. Sometimes frustration and difficulty expressing themselves, in a way that others hear and understand them can create anger. Children learn from what they see, so as adults it can be helpful to share more about our own feelings, and how we experience different feelings and why (in an age appropriate way) so that they can become more aware of and comfortable with the variety of feelings they experience as well.

Anxiety is a natural stress reaction to situations that can be perceived as a threat. In mental health treatment and management, we can work to identify whether the threat is REAL, or perceived. If the threat is REAL, then your body is naturally doing its job to alert you to take action and navigate to safety. If the threat is perceived, therapy can help you learn and practice skills to reduce the impact of anxiety on our nervous system, and ability to problem solve to take mindful action in the moment.