Counseling is excellent for anyone who is looking for a little direction in their lives, and anyone can benefit from speaking with a counselor. Think of counseling as your chance to talk to a trusted advisor, get their opinion, and work through issues while getting expert advice and genuine support. Keeping this in mind, counseling is an excellent opportunity to work on improving your relationships, reducing your daily stress and anxiety, and making the most of your career. Below, we answer common counseling questions.
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What Are the Differences and Similarities Between Counseling and Therapy?
People often use the terms counseling and therapy interchangeably to describe similar mental health treatment options. Despite this, there are differences between the two. Let’s compare:
Counseling
- Counseling is usually conducted by a counselor, but can also be provided by a psychotherapist.
- The educational requirements of a counselor tend to involve more general training, but they can specialize in an area of treatment.
- Counselors may hold Bachelor’s degrees in social work, counseling, or psychology, and may need a Master’s degree as well.
- Requirements vary by state, but counselors usually must be licensed too.
- In general, counseling is used to solve a short-term problem or behavioral issue.
- Counselors typically provide guidance and advice to help their clients work past roadblocks in their personal lives.
Therapy
- Therapy is led by a psychotherapist, but not a counselor
- The educational requirements of a psychotherapist involve more specialized training.
- Psychotherapists often hold a Master’s degree in psychology and may even have a Ph.D.
- A psychotherapist must be licensed.
- Therapy usually delves deeper and aims to help treat more severe and long-term mental health issues like depression, anxiety, or unresolved issues from the past.
- Therapy may examine and resolve a client’s harmful thinking patterns and work to find out the root cause of issues like trauma.
What Type of Mental Health Services Does BCB Therapy Provide?
Mental health issues can often be debilitating, but the great news is that just like other health conditions, they are highly treatable. BCB Therapy is happy to serve the states of Oregon and Idaho with a variety of mental health services to help clients in all stages of life, including both teenagers and adults. Mental health issues and problems in your personal life can be scary and challenging to live with and are tough to work through on your own. Bend & Boise Counseling & Biofeedback offers a variety of services to help guide you through life’s challenges and help you reach your full potential, including:
- Teletherapy is providing therapy through a live video connection over the internet. You receive the same treatment as you would in person, but it is through a computer.
- We are pleased to offer compassionate, personalized, online, and phone counseling with various services for clients of all ages. Our therapists provide an integrative approach to counseling that will give the benefit of many perspectives and can help you relieve stress and confusion.
- Biofeedback involves using electronic instrumentation to monitor specific, often unconscious physiological activities of a patient’s body and then “feeds back” the information to them.
- Neurofeedback is a non-invasive procedure that monitors and analyzes the brain’s electrical activity, also known as the electroencephalogram or EEG, and then uses this information to formulate the feedback, which is delivered through the same sensors used to monitor brainwaves.
- HeartMath techniques are designed to cause a shift in both the nervous system and the hormonal system. The biofeedback technology offers clients confirmation that what they are feeling subjectively has a simultaneous response physiologically.
- Our Peak Performance Program helps to eliminate the mental and neurological barriers to performance. The goal is to improve your ability to regulate your attention in order to enhance and focus your natural abilities.
- This therapy works in a profound, efficient manner to bring about observable healing in the client. The goal is to process these traumatic memories, reduce their lingering effects, and allow clients to develop more adaptive coping mechanisms.
- The therapy we offer (CBT-I) treats the underlying cause of your insomnia and offers you support as you develop new skills, thoughts, and behaviors.
Our highly trained counselors and psychotherapists hold the required licenses and are well-versed in a wide variety of treatment options and styles so that we can help you find the right treatment for your needs. We understand how essential it is to have a support system in place to help you tackle your challenges in a compassionate and safe setting, and we strive to make you feel comfortable in our offices.
When Should You Make an Appointment With a Counselor?
If you are feeling stuck in your personal life and would like to build a solid foundation of support and trust with a knowledgeable expert, a counselor is an excellent choice for your needs. A counselor can provide a compassionate ear and great advice when you are facing a challenge. Counseling usually focuses on a specific issue in your life, like managing stress, improving your relationships, or recovering from a problem. Counselors will often specialize in certain areas as well. For example, relationship or marriage counselors focus on couple’s therapy, grief counselors can offer support after the death of a loved one, and teletherapy counselors will help you with your mental health needs while utilizing technology to communicate, rather than an in office visit.
When Should You Make an Appointment With a Therapist?
If you suspect that you are facing a more serious mental health issue like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, OCD, or a personality disorder, a therapist can be an excellent resource for treatment. Your primary care provider may have given you a mental health diagnosis and may recommend psychotherapy as a treatment option. Find a therapist who specializes in the issue that you are facing and look at the types of therapy they offer. Many people do not realize that there are lots of different kinds of therapy options, including cognitive behavior therapy, dialectic behavior therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and others.
Neither therapists nor counselors prescribe medication, so if you are looking for a more natural treatment option, therapy could be the right choice for you. Medication is helpful for some people, but many people are wary of potential side effects. Some people also may choose to combine both therapy and medication.
How Do You Find and Choose A Good Counselor?
Though counseling is usually more short-term than therapy, it is still crucial to find a counselor who you click with. Think about precisely what is bothering you and what needs fixing in your life and seek out a counselor who specializes in that area. Then, make sure it is someone you can trust to talk to and be open with about your problems. The relationship you have with your counselor should also always be one of mutual respect.
Before you settle on which counselor to have sessions with, take your initial appointment to ask them any questions you may have about their treatment approaches, their experience, their training, and what they feel is most vital for you as a client. Each therapist has a unique approach to treatment, and therefore it’s expected that you will not have a connection with every therapist. This is normal, and there is no need to feel bad or disheartened if the first therapist you engage with isn’t a great fit. After all, you will be talking about sensitive topics, so you want to make sure that you have a good feeling about working with them.
What Happens During Your First Appointment at BCB Therapy?
During your first visit to BCB Therapy, you will meet with one of our licensed mental health professionals who will talk with you to get a solid understanding of the issues you are currently facing in your life. Expect to talk about the current problems you are having, things that have happened in your past, and your own family’s history of mental health. This initial evaluation will allow your counselor or therapist to get a handle on what kind of treatment might be best for you. From there, we will work to develop treatment plan and goals that you can progress towards during your therapy or counseling sessions.
During this first counseling appointment, you will also discuss how often you will be returning for sessions. Most people prefer weekly counseling sessions, though some choose twice a week or every other week. Our counselors and therapists want to make sure you are comfortable and included in any decisions they make about your treatment, so you will always get to make the final choice about how to proceed.
About Bend and Boise Counseling & Biofeedback
At Bend and Boise Counseling & Biofeedback (BCB) Therapy, we first opened our doors in 2004 and now have offices in Bend, Oregon, and Boise, Idaho. Our staff comprises six fully-certified mental health professionals, each with different strengths and specialties, to assure you are receive the best mental health treatment available.
Teletherapy in Oregon
It is normal to feel scared or unsure about the future, especially right now, when the United States is facing a severe mental health crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has shuttered many businesses and put millions of people out of work. So now more than ever, it is vital to have someone to process these significant events with and to keep counseling sessions regular. At BCB Therapy, we are dedicated to helping as many people as we can during this time of crisis, so we have turned to teletherapy to continue to serve our regular clients and meet new ones.
What is Teletherapy?
Teletherapy is exactly what it sounds like! You can connect with your therapist remotely using safe and secure video chatting software. It is a remarkably similar experience to using a program like Skype, so you can be sure your experience will be user-friendly, even if you aren’t particularly tech-savvy. All you need is an internet connection and a webcam and microphone! Our connection is compliant with all required data privacy regulations in Oregon, including HIPAA, PIPEDA, and GDPR, so you can rest assured that your personal data will stay safe.
What is Therapy or Counseling Like?
We offer an integrative approach to counseling that will provide you with the benefit of many perspectives. BCB Therapy maintains a foundation in evidence-based, effective practices. We have found that integrating Mindfulness into sessions can help people heal on a deeper level. We work from a theoretical approach called Interpersonal Neurobiology. This means we look at issues through a broad lens, including the client’s brain, mind, and relationships. When appropriate, we integrate Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Solution-Focused techniques into a Person-Centered approach. We also offer teletherapy for teens, adults, couples, and families.
Why Choose BCB Therapy for Counseling?
BCB Therapy is a leader in mental health treatment. We are proud to both offer therapy and counseling options, in addition to biofeedback, neurofeedback, EMDR, and other state-of-the-art technologies. If you’d like more information about how we can help you work through mental health issues and help you get on the right path towards achieving your goals, contact us, or book an appointment.