Counseling

When you seek counseling at Mesa Vista Wellness, your journey begins with a comprehensive intake assessment. During this 90-minute conversation, we will ask you questions about your physical, mental, spiritual and emotional well-being.  From this conversation, your therapist will talk with you about how best to address the concerns that brought you here and create an initial customized care plan.  This plan will evolve as your needs change.

Our clinicians also perform court ordered comprehensive drug and alcohol assessments and family and co-parenting assessments as needed.  All assessments, whether court ordered or mandated, will include therapeutic recommendations.

After an initial screening and assessment, we use a variety of treatment approaches to stimulate self-reflection and create a channel to personal growth, healing and wellness.

Many of our clinicians specialize in trauma-informed care. Our team is highly sensitive to the impact of trauma on one’s life and skilled at supporting each client through their recovery.

Our therapists employ several modalities to enable transformation and restore well-being.

MODALITIES

• Art Therapy
• Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
• Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)
• Mindfulness and Meditation
• Motivational Interviewing
• Sand Tray Therapy

Art Therapy

Art therapy is a creative process that is facilitated by a trained and licensed art therapist.

Through experiential directives, art therapy helps to unlock the unconscious stories or narratives within that keep us from showing up fully and whole-heartedly in our life.  Art therapy often produces an emotional breakthrough that leads to “a new kind of aha.”

Art therapy is appropriate for everyone.  It has been shown to be particularly helpful for those seeking trauma and/or addiction recovery.  It is also helpful for people who find difficulty with verbal communication and for those who prefer non-verbal expression.

Because we all have the innate ability to be creative, no artistic skills are needed.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT is a form of talk therapy that that will help you manage and re-frame your irrational thoughts to reduce negative thinking and behavioral patterns.  It introduces and re-directs behaviors and beliefs towards healthier thoughts and choices.  From this, you will be able to view challenging situations more clearly and respond in a more effective way.

CBT is most often used to help people with symptoms of anxiety and depression but also utilized in the treatment of various conditions.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

DBT is a form of talk therapy that teaches mindfulness techniques to help clients develop emotional regulation skills and increase their tolerance for stressful situations.  Clients learn about triggers that lead to reactive states and practice healthy stress management skills.  Core principles of DBT include acceptance and change.

DBT is often used to help those who have high levels of emotional dysregulation and who may engage in impulsive and/or high-risk behaviors.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) 

EMDR is an intensive therapy to address complex trauma and its accompanying symptoms.  It neutralizes a client’s trauma response and helps to dissolve the negative cognitions associated with the traumatic events.  The human mind uses rapid eye movement (REM) during sleep to help it process daily emotional experiences.  Often times, much of our trauma goes unaddressed and remains locked in our nervous system.  This unprocessed emotional energy takes its toll on us physically and emotionally.  EMDR uses bilateral stimulation techniques, typically eye movements, to address painful and traumatic thoughts, beliefs and memories.  EMDR therapy has standardized protocols that inform the therapeutic process.

It is highly effective in helping individuals who have trauma and those with post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

Meditation and Mindfulness

Meditation is a practice used throughout the world to increase day-to-day mindfulness, achieve mental clarity and increase self-awareness.  Meditation trains the mind to be a witness of your own thoughts, allowing beliefs or feelings to arise without judgement or attachment.  Some examples of meditation techniques are walking and sitting meditations.

Meditation has been proven to quiet one’s thoughts, reduce anxiety, lower heart rate and blood pressure, strengthen your immune system, regulate mood and benefit everyone.

Motivational Interviewing (MI)

MI is a type of conversation or counseling style that helps elicit a person’s desire and motivation for making a positive change.  The client and therapist work as partners to allow a person to explore and resolve their ambivalence (pros and cons) towards change and reinforce their reasons for change.

Everyone possesses the skills to change. MI empowers clients by helping them to identify the conditions needed to make the desired change, while evoking hope and confidence.

MI techniques are highly successful for those who are ambivalent about making a lifestyle change, such as starting an exercise program, reducing alcohol intake or changing any unhealthy habit.

Sand Tray Therapy

A form of expressive therapy where clients use symbols, toys and metaphors to explore and better understand their inner or subconscious world.  Sand tray helps to resolve trauma, address personality disorders, and calls forth unconscious material that needs to be explored to heal.

Sand Tray techniques can bring about powerful change for anyone who has experienced complex trauma and for those who prefer non-verbal expression.