General Mental Health
General Mental Health services are provided to clients age 18 and up. This type of counseling is used for those learning to work with depression, anxiety, and other similar difficulties.
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Life Adjustment Issues
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Available for clients age 18 and up, Life Adjustment Issues include, but are not limited to: onset of illness (family or self), adjusting to a change in lifestyle, feeling overwhelmed due to family disharmony or relationship issues.
Grief and Loss
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It's never easy to lose someone that you care about. Grief and Loss counseling services help you to work through this difficult time and find a new sense of normal. This service is available for clients age 7 and up. See more below about Bereavement Therapy.
Pet Bereavement
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When we think of grief and loss, pets are often overlooked, however, the loss of a pet can be just equally difficult to work through. Read more below about this specialized service.
Compassion Fatigue
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Caring for someone facing an end-of-life transition can take a huge toll on on a caregiver. Whether you're a family member, volunteer, or an employee helping individuals through their final days, compassion fatigue could be a very real struggle for you.
Pet Bereavement
Pet Bereavement is a process that tends to be over looked by society. Often times, immediately after the loss, bereaved pet parents are expected to “go on as usual” without public recognition or support - life is expected to go back to “normal”.
Yet, those who have lost a beloved pet may feel grief symptoms such as guilt, apprehension, sadness, loneliness - to name just a few. They grieve the absence of their beloved “family member”, who provided unconditional love, comfort, and support. They agonize over the decisions they made, and second guess themselves as they replay their experiences watching helplessly as their beloved pet became
increasingly frail/sick, while losing his/her “essence”. Then they have to readjust to the emptiness of the loss, and the pain of the separation. For those who are grieving their beloved pet, their “normal” has changed.
Pet Bereavement is a specialized area dedicated to aiding those who have lost a pet, or are anticipating the death of their pet. For most families, pets become part of their family unit, and are treated as such. Unfortunately, pet lifespans are much shorter for an animal that a human; consequently, the pet parents often have to make hard decisions regarding end of life care. Hence the grief process becomes a very painful journey with lots of questions, e.g. did I do the right thing, did my pet understand, is my pet mad at me, did s/he suffer through the process, who is with her/him now, did I wait too long causing her/him to suffer more?
As well as being trained as a Thanatologist (death and dying specialist), Terry has experienced the personal loss of her own beloved pets. She understands the grief process, and dynamics experienced by many. Through individual sessions, she helps individuals work through their grief issues in a secure healing environment. Individual therapy consists of a 50-minute session; fee: $60.00/session.
Group Pet Bereavement Counseling (CURRENTLY NOT AVAILABLE)
Currently, she is looking to lead Pet Bereavement Groups in a facility that will have space for 4 to 8 people to participate in a 90-minute session held twice a month. Fee: Will be determined at a later time. If anyone knows of a facility, please contact her at her office.
Bereavement Therapy
Bereavement is more complex than what is ordinary believed. It is a process that includes:
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grief (the experience of a physical, social, behavioral, and/or cognitive reaction to an event)
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mourning the active process that is displayed regarding the loss, e.g. attending funerals, sending flowers, sitting Shiva
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bereavement - the state of having experienced a loss of any kind
The loss doesn’t necessarily have to be the physical death of a loved one, it can be symbolic, e.g. the loss of health, job and life style changes; losing an irreplaceable piece of jewelry, a breakup in a significant relationship, or loss of social status. Bereavement can occur by events that compromise one’s personal perception, e.g. watching one’s loved one (spouse, parents, friends, children) decline through the aging process, or changes in life issues.
Often times, when not addressed, it will manifest as anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation, change in eating habits (weight gain/weight loss), a need for isolation, losing interest in things that were pleasurable, etc. Many people tend to minimize, resist, or deny the symptoms believing that they are “going crazy. Often, it is not until someone calls attention to the behavior that they begin to recognize that intervention is needed.
Grief is an individual process that is experienced differently for each person – some internalized while others display overt emotions and behaviors. Often times, the pain is the result of expectations, beliefs and thoughts that became violated due to a “shake up” in one’s life schema (belief system). Bereavement therapy is a way to work through these violations, to help the person to become more aware of how their behavior and thoughts impact their life. With therapy, clients work on personal goal setting, develop strategies, and techniques that aide them through the process of positive change. Terry uses a number of modalities, e.g. Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Transactional Analysis, Existential therapy, Rogerian Therapy, etc. customized to the clients’ need. She believes that as a team, she and the clients can find comfort levels that will foster positive growth.