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Mountains

Virtual Therapy Group

RECLAIM
The Life You Want

Science-Backed Practices to Get Unstuck from Depression and Anxiety

Getting Stuck in a Shrinking Life

When we experience depression and/or anxiety, we often find our lives shrinking as we become stuck in patterns of negativity, hopelessness, and avoidance. Our thoughts and feelings spiral into negativity, as our brains focus on protecting us from perceived threats. The harder we try to stop that spiraling, the worse it seems to get. We ruminate about past “if-only’s” and worry about future “what-if’s” – missing out on what is happening in the present moment. Rather than taking actions based on awareness of our values, we do things that make us feel better immediately, but may not ultimately move us towards the life we want to create, the person we want to be, or the relationships we desire. Our lives become less active, engaged, satisfying, meaningful, and purposeful; we begin to overlook what is good about our lives; we neglect self-care; we beat ourselves up over not being able to gain control over this cycle; and yet we resist change because our negative brains say, “well, what’s the point?” It’s a vicious cycle – when we experience depression and/or anxiety we stop or avoid doing the things that make our lives satisfying - which simply continues to feed the depression and/or anxiety.

Getting Unstuck and Reclaiming Your Life

Fortunately, we know more now than we ever have about what works to get unstuck from this self-defeating spiral and reclaim their lives. We know how to help people change their relationship to their thoughts and feelings so that they don’t get hooked by them and jerked around as much. There are skills that anyone can learn to stop the struggle with the negative self-talk spiral and get in touch, instead, with values that can pave the way towards taking actions that get us unstuck and create better lives and relationships. Research has shown that our brains, even depressed and/or anxious ones, can be retrained to notice and experience more positivity, meaning, gratitude, awe, connection, and joy. And we know how to help people take and maintain effective actions that lead to getting unstuck and living the lives they want.

What We'll Learn and Practice Together

Using frameworks such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) (a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)), Positive Psychology (the study of human “thriving”), Mindfulness, Self-Compassion, among others, participants in this group will gain and improve psychological flexibility and hardiness (resilience) skills that will help you get unstuck from depression and anxiety, like some of the skills below:

The Details

Dates: Virtual Group, Thursdays, 4 – 5:30 pm PST, 5 – 6:30 pm MST starting Feb 2, 2023

Feb 2, 9, 16, 23 and March 2, 9, 16, and 23

 

If these times don’t work, another group will be starting on a different day once we have enough interest, so fill out the contact form and let us know you'd like to be on the list for a future group, and/or if you are interested in future in-person groups in the Bellingham, WA area.

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Length: Eight 90-minute weekly sessions.

 

Participants will then have the option of attending some individual sessions, and/or joining a therapist-facilitated support group of other group “graduates” to continue to practice and learn together.

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Number of participants: 6 to 12 (residents of WA or CO only due to licensure requirements)

 

Self-pay cost: $320 for the full 8-week program.

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Insurances accepted:

  • Aetna

  • Oscar

  • Harvard Pilgrim

  • United Healthcare

  • Optum

  • UMR

  • Oxford

  • UHC

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