Counseling, Therapy, and Psychological Services

Psychological Testing

We offer a wide array of psychological testing services. For further information regarding ADHD evaluations, academic and intellectual evaluations, and emotional and behavior evaluations please see our dedicated page.

Child and Adolescent Counseling

We work with children and teens on a range of emotional and behavioral issues such as ADHD, parent-child conflicts, problems with school, bullying, and peer relationships. Of course, this also means collaborating with parents to ensure the best outcome! Our therapists offer a number of therapeutic approaches including play therapy and cognitive behavioral interventions that help their clients achieve greater coping skills and self-control.

Relationship Counseling for Individuals and Couples

Relationships can be challenging. They can be difficult and frustrating. They can also be amazing and rewarding when we build the ones we want. We work with individuals, couples, and families to create the relationships they want. Some of the more frequent relationship issues we work with include marriage counseling and couples counseling concerns such as recovering from infidelity, loss of passion and closeness, and seemingly endless arguments. Don’t give up hope! Relationship counseling can help you get through these stuck points and move forward. For more information please click here.

Mood and Anxiety Disorders

Combined, mood and anxiety disorders (such as depression, bipolar disorder, panic disorder, generalized anxiety, social phobia, and others) are the most frequently occurring mental health issues that people struggle to manage. Thankfully, effective treatments are available. We utilize scientifically supported assessment tools that help with making a clear diagnosis. We’ll then formulate a treatment plan for your specific needs and identify helpful skills that you can use to get you back on track and feeling your best.

Substance Abuse Counseling

Is your use causing problems, and do you need to stop using to stop the problems? If the answer is “Yes” then you are likely reading this page because you have become pretty desperate to change a habit, or you have a spouse or parent looking over your shoulder. You can probably stop, and good counseling can help you stop using.

You are new to being sober and you are overwhelmed with all of the changes you are making. You can’t talk to your family about your urges because they’ll freak out and you can’t talk to your group about your depression because you don’t trust them enough yet – so where do you turn? Counseling creates the private, nonjudgmental space where you can bring out all of you and work toward what you desire out of your clean and sober life. That might be asking questions and getting educated on concepts related to sobriety, it might be solving pressing problems that aren’t directly related to substance abuse, and it might be an emotional getaway for an hour if that’s what you need from your session.

It takes time and effort to recover from substance abuse. Effective individual counseling is often time and effort well spent to help in the recovery process. Call us today to get help with your path, whether you are just starting out or well on your way.

Stress Management

Stress may feel like a constant in your life but it doesn’t have to overwhelm you. Learn to take control! We’ll help you add some valuable tools to your toolbox and develop concrete skills to help you manage your stress. We’ll cover relaxation breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, cognitive restructuring, and more.

Trauma / EMDR

“EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an integrative psychotherapy approach that has been extensively researched and proven effective for the treatment of trauma. EMDR is a set of standardized protocols that incorporates elements from many different treatment approaches.” So it is defined on the website of its International Association, EMDRIA. By accessing troubling memories and images directly and replacing negative thoughts with more adaptive and positive ones, this form of therapy can significantly help reduce the impact of these images and memories. EMDR integrates components of Cognitive-Behavioral, Client-Centered, Solution-Focused Therapies and neuroscience to achieve sometimes spectacular and often rapid results. The protocol can also be used to reduce cravings in addiction, calm phobias and anxieties, as well as increase performance of all kinds. We would be happy to answer any questions you might have about this approach.

Career Counseling

Now more than ever before career issues have moved to a front and center position. Due to the combined forces of economic pressures, work-life balance conflicts, and uncertain employment stability, career counseling has become increasingly important.

Career counseling can help you to identify and refine your career interests while helping you meet your career goals. A large part of career counseling is oriented towards examining a combination of personality styles, interests, and skills and how they fit with different career options. The possible benefits? Increased job satisfaction and a better ability to manage the demands of work and family life. You might even be able to answer the question that never quite seems to go away: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Brief Counseling

We have been trained extensively in the application of brief counseling models. Some of our training experiences were in university clinics that utilized session limits. Counselors only had eight sessions to complete the work! This is not a lot of time and at first it was intimidating to work within that structure. Amazingly, though, the session limits were actually quite helpful in a number of cases. Working briefly means working in a focused manner that quickly identifies therapeutic priorities and translates those priorities into action steps aimed at addressing the presenting issue in as little time as possible.

At Focus Forward Counseling and Consulting we often don’t have to worry about artificial session limits to work within. Still, the training within brief models has been invaluable and has helped create a mindset that expects to product therapeutic improvements in reasonable periods of time. You may be pleasantly surprised at how quickly changes can happen.

Eating Disorders and Related Behaviors

Anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder are among the most serious illnesses individuals may face. These illnesses often compromise not only one’s emotional well-being, but her/his physical health as well.  According to the National Institute of Mental Health, individuals with eating disorders are 18 times more likely to die prematurely compared to other people of similar ages. Through evaluation and counseling we can identify the origins of your symptoms and help you in learning how to construct a new and healthier body image and eating habits.  By increasing your awareness and growing in self-acceptance, you can regain an enjoyable life that does not revolve around food.