Mental Health America of Pikes Peak Region | 1352 N. Academy Blvd. | Colorado Springs, CO 80909
T: 719.633-4604 | F: 719.633.0845

Therapeutic Certifications

There are many therapeutic techniques and tools used in the therapy process. Asking a potential therapist if she or he has a special certifications helps you better understand their treatment philosophy and what techniques they made use during the course of therapy.

Art Therapy: Uses art-making processes to engage emotional and psychological issues. Both the physical act of making and the image/content of the work can express and heal trauma and visualize desired outcomes. Often times, creating art allows a much more direct access than words to uncomfortable feelings, memories and ideas.

Biofeedback: a treatment technique in which people are trained to improve their health by using signals from their own bodies. Physical therapists use biofeedback to help stroke victims regain movement in paralyzed muscles. Psychologists use it to help tense and anxious clients learn to relax. Specialists in many different fields use biofeedback to help their patients cope with pain.

Crisis Intervention Therapy: Psychotherapy that focuses on acute critical situations (depressive episodes or attempted suicides or drug overdoses.) These services respond to a client's needs during acute emotional and/or physical distress with the aim of restoring the person to the level of functioning before the crisis)

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: is used to treat bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder (BPD), and those who struggle with self-harm behaviors such as cutting and suicide attempts. Basically, DBT maintains that some people react abnormally to emotional stimulation. Their level of arousal goes up much more quickly, peaks at a higher level, and takes more time to return to baseline. DBT is a method for teaching skills that will help people cope with these sudden, intense surges of emotion.

EMDR: (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) It is a form of exposure therapy that has people move their eyes back and forth while re-imagining the source of their trauma. It can help overcome Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma. Typically, PTSD symptoms such as nightmares, startle reactions, and rage attacks are reduced using EMDR, along with the accompanying negative core beliefs that trauma victims often have.

Energy Treatment: an ancient meditative art dealing with energy and the laying on of hands to integrate and tune your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual bodies. Some benefits include: Provides relaxation and stress reduction, supports the body's natural ability to heal, facilitates in healing acute and chronic illness, and Helps balance the body's mental, emotional, and physical energies.

Guided Imagery: A visualization technique. Participants visualize a goal they want to achieve, then imagine themselves going through the process of achieving it. Severely ill patients, for example, are urged to picture their internal organs and imagine them free of disease, or to picture tumors shrinking, or invading microorganisms succumbing to aggressive immune cells.

Hypnotherapy: Hypnotherapy attempts to address the client's subconscious mind. In practice, the Hypnotherapist often (but not exclusively) requires the client to be in a relaxed state, frequently enlists the power of the client's own imagination and may utilise a wide range of techniques from story telling, metaphor or symbolism (judged to be meaningful to the individual client) to the use of direct suggestions for beneficial change. Analytical techniques may also be employed in an attempt to uncover problems deemed to lie in a client's past or therapy may concentrate more on a client's current life and presenting problems. Hypnotherapy is generally considered to be a fairly short-term approach in which beneficial change, if it is to occur, should become apparent within a relatively few sessions.

Play Therapy: Geared toward young children, this technique uses a variety of activities, such as painting, puppets, and dioramas, to establish communication with the therapist and resolve problems. Play allows the child to express emotions and problems that would be too difficult to discuss with another person.

Recreational Therapy: treatment services and recreation activities to individuals with disabilities or illnesses. Using a variety of techniques, including arts and crafts, animals, sports, games, dance and movement, drama, music, and community outings, therapists treat and maintain the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of their clients. Therapists help individuals reduce depression, stress, and anxiety; recover basic motor functioning and reasoning abilities; build confidence; and socialize effectively so that they can enjoy greater independence, as well as reduce or eliminate the effects of their illness or disability.

Spiritual Care: The importance of spiritual care differs from person to person. Some people may find solace in the rituals and traditions of organized religion; others may need to evaluate the meaning of their life and relationships or to come to terms with important issues.

Thought Field Therapy: While a trained therapist is present, the patient is first asked to think about a troublesome issue. They are then asked to quantify their feelings on a scale of 1 to 10, with a 10 representing maximum distress. Next, the patient is asked to tap on his or her own body in specific places, or energy points, in a specific order. Following the treatment the patient is once again asked to think about their problem or issue and rate it, indicating how much distress they feel. Therapists who conduct though field therapy believe that there is a relationship between the cause of negative emotions and specific energy meridian points on the body, which, when stimulated in a specific sequence, result in healing.