Setting Us Apart and Making a Meaningful Difference

Specialized training relates to our team’s areas of interest. As a group, we take what we do seriously and want you to get the care you deserve. We go above and beyond. In addition to our Master’s level licensure training, each practitioner at Prism Therapy Group has continued to obtain training and education.

We are dedicated to ensuring we are up to date with the most effective interventions and training to continue to grow as providers. There is always more to learn and we model this through continued advancement and education. We integrate this knowledge to provide support individualized to your needs and goals. This creates a holistic and comprehensive approach to support you on your path to wellness.

Our Specialties

EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a form of therapy that focuses on alleviating emotional distress associated with distressing life experiences. EMDR helps with symptoms associated with PTSD, anxiety, depression, panic disorder.  EMDR doesn’t require “talk” therapy in a traditional sense to address symptoms. EMDR works by naturally resuming the healing process within the brain by resolving the “stuck” stress response. EMDR treatment is typically short-term in length compared to talk therapy.

Benefits of EMDR:

  • Doesn’t require talking about many details of events and experiences
  • Short-term when compared to other PTSD treatments
  • Supports in the development of coping and containment strategies
  • Supports with emotional regulation and desensitization of triggers
  • Supports meaningful state and trait changes

Theraplay

Theraplay is a form of thrapy that creates space for authentic, playful, and caring interactions between a caregiver and child through shared experiences. Theraplay utilizes a structured set of activities to promote caregiver-child connection and attunement. These structured activities focus on the development of four qualities that promote healthy caregiver-child relationships: structure, nurture, engagement, and challenge.

Theraplay is a collaborative process involving a therapist working with both the caregiver and child in session to address behavioral, emotional, and developmental issues through the promotion of healthy interactions. This type of therapy is usually implemented with younger children but can be adapted to address attachment and behavioral issues for older children as well. This can be very helpful for caregivers to learn new skills and get hands-on support in managing and creating corrective experiences to repair and support healthy attachment between caregiver and child.

Benefits of Theraplay:

  • Increase healthy and playful connection between caregiver and child
  • Supports secure attachment and stronger bond
  • Supports with emotional regulation and direct practice in session
  • Directive tasks and interactive activities modeled directly
  • Education and hands-on approach
  • Collaborative problem-solving supports

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that focuses on utilizing mindfulness to decrease the severity of symptoms. DBT therapists help others develop acceptance within themselves and their present life circumstances, as well as aid in empowering others to implement positive changes that will make a difference. DBT also is used to teach skills associated with building a tolerance to distress, improving interpersonal effectiveness, and developing healthy ways of regulating emotions. This is an empirically supported model to support managing higher intensity reactivity and behaviors relating to safety, risk, and impulsivity.

Benefits of DBT:

  • Development of mindfulness, validation, and acceptance
  • Coping mechanisms, emotional regulation, and self-soothing strategies
  • Tools to use focused on the promotion of distress tolerance
  • Works well with intense emotions and impulsivity
  • Promotes more positive and healthy interpersonal relationships and interactions

Fertility Therapy Services

Fertility therapy services is a specialized form of therapy involving an individual/couple and a therapist.  A therapist providing fertility mental health services has obtained the appropriate training according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) in order to provide exceptional care.  While there are similarities between typical individual therapy and fertility therapy, the focus is generally on addressing presenting concerns/experiences, beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and relationships through the context of fertility and infertility as well as family building.  Each client’s case is treated with care and consideration regarding treatment goals and length of services. The time spent together in session creates a space for healing and connection to provide compassion, understanding, and support.

Benefits of fertility Therapy:

  • Specialized support from a therapist trained in working within the spectrum of fertility issues
  • Support in navigating the steps of fertility diagnosis and treatment process
  • Improved understanding of the connection between mental health and fertility
  • Increased knowledge of systemic effects of fertility (ie. Partner, family, and friend relationships, work, finances, etc.)
  • Empowerment in making choices for you and your family building journey
  • Exploration of coping skills
  • Space for emotional identification and processing

Sandtray

Sandtray therapy is a therapy that utilizes a tray of sand in which an individual creates pictures using miniatures and figures. This hands-on psychological work generally is used in conjunction with other therapeutic methods. Sandtray can be a very powerful experience to support new insights, understanding, and healing.

The images created in sandtray provide a visual and physical representation of a symbolic inner world within the constructs of a safe container. Sandtray can support in finding a new awareness of multiple layers of experience, including some that may be pre-verbal or subconscious. Through the use of symbols and meaning-making progress occurs through the integration of new paths and connections, supporting clients toward healing, wholeness, and balance.

Benefits of Sandtray Therapy:

  • Doesn’t require talking about things directly
  • Externalizes issues and supports with containment to promote safety
  • Brings about new awareness and insights
  • Accesses multiple developmental stages and states of mind
  • Highly effective in working with grief and trauma

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is an action-oriented, solution-focused approach to therapy.  This approach extends beyond traditional forms of behavior and cognitive-behavioral therapies and provides clients with tools and strategies that allow them to no longer struggle with their deeper (sometimes painful) feelings.  Instead, clients are empowered to achieve acceptance and commitment toward values-aligned behaviors that help them to move forward in their lives.  Through this approach, clients begin to accept their issues and hardships and commit to making necessary changes in their behavior, regardless of what is going on in their lives, and how they feel about it.

The premise behind ACT is that it is ineffective and counterproductive to try to control painful emotions or psychological experiences.  Tendencies such as avoidance, distraction, over-thinking, and/or self-harming might help to alleviate pain initially but ultimately do not resolve distress and tend to create more issues instead. ACT provides clients with valid alternatives to changing one’s relationships with their thoughts and feelings. By taking steps to change behaviors while at the same time learning to accept psychological experiences (painful or not), clients can begin to change their attitude, emotional state, and overall functioning.

Benefits of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT):

  • Operating within a hexagon model, the 6 components of ACT include: mindfulness, seeing self through an observer’s lens, defusing from unhelpful thought patterns, acceptance and willingness to feel, clarity of one’s values and what matters to them in life, and commitment to action.
  • ACT is an effective therapeutic intervention for a variety of emotional, mental, and physical health diagnoses such as generalized anxiety, social anxiety, test anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, trauma, chronic pain, and substance use disorders. 

Somatic Therapy

We have several therapists trained in somatic modalities, including Somatic Experiencing®, Transforming Touch®, and Bodynamics®. Somatic Therapy works with the body to regulate the nervous system and promote healing. These approaches differ from traditional cognitive therapies by using a bottom-up method, which emphasizes bodily sensations (interoception, proprioception, and kinesthetic awareness) to address dysregulated states, differing from cognitive approaches typically utilized in talk therapies. Somatic work aims to address the body’s response to danger, threat, safety, and connection, recognizing that the body informs both regulated and dysregulated states throughout life. There are few therapists in our area trained in these modalities, and it takes years to obtain certification, making these practitioners highly specialized in this field.

Techniques used in somatic therapies include:

Body awareness: Understanding how the nervous system responds to stress and sensation.

Resourcing: Building strength, resilience, and appreciation.

Titration: Breaking down overwhelming experiences into smaller, manageable pieces.

Pendulation and Oscillation: Moving between states of activation and relaxation to help clients regulate emotions and cope with triggers.

Benefits of Somatic Therapy:

  • No need to verbally recount past experiences.
  • Integration of mental and physical experiences.
  • Access to early, pre-verbal memories.
  • Promotion of emotional regulation and corrective experiences.
  • A holistic approach that supports long-term healing across mind and body.

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is a type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy designed to help people with OCD, phobias, and anxiety disorders confront and manage their fears. In ERP, therapists guide clients to face feared situations or thoughts without resorting to avoidance or compulsive behaviors, all within a safe and supportive environment. ERP teaches that not only are these feared thoughts or situations safe, but it’s also okay to experience the emotions they bring up.  This approach helps clients build the courage and skills to break the anxiety and OCD cycle, develop new responses, and increase their sense of control and confidence. Our therapists understand this process can feel intimidating, so they start with less overwhelming exposures and gradually work up to more challenging situations.

Benefits of ERP:

  • Effective, evidence-based treatment for OCD and anxiety disorders
  • Increased ability to confront and tolerate anxiety-provoking situations
  • Supports the development of long-lasting coping skills to manage distress
  • Promotes long-term reduction in intensity and frequency of anxious thoughts, obsessions, and compulsions