Jennifer Stark,  Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist

Marriage counseling, or couples therapy, helps couples, married or not, understand and resolve their problems and improve their relationship. With counseling, couples learn tools to communicate better, find solutions to differences, problem solve and even disagree in a healthier way.

Marriage counseling is often short term. You may need only a few sessions to help you resolve a crisis, or you may to attend sessions for several months, depending on several factors, including the particular problems that you are having. Typically, you meet with your marriage counselor once a week.

Play therapy is used mostly with young children at specific developmental levels. Play therapy uses a variety of techniques, including playing therapeutic board games, painting, drawing, playing with dolls or toys, or other activities. With play therapy techniques, children are able to express feelings and emotions if they lack the cognitive development to express themselves with words.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a type of therapy that helps you to learn to identify unhealthy, negative beliefs and behaviors and replace them with healthy, positive ones. The premise of this therapy is that your own thoughts determine how you behave. Even if you are in a challenging situation, you can change the way you think and behave in a positive way.

The basic premise of solution-focused therapy is to increase what is working and decrease what isn't working. Therapy usually focuses on the present situation, and only uses information from your past when it bears on your present problem.  One assumption in solution-focused therapy is that you bring a lot of personal strengths to coping in your life. The goal of solution-focused therapy is to increase and build on these strengths. The focus of therapy is on building workable solutions for the challenges you face.

Family therapy is a type of psychotherapy that helps families understand and improve the way family members interact with each other and resolve conflicts. Family therapy can teach family members new coping skills and how to communicate and get along better.  Family therapy is often short term and might involve you attending one session a week, for about three to five months.

For people who wish to explore deeper levels of understanding and gain increased insight into their behavior and inner world, long-term therapy is an option. The goal of long-term therapy is to resolve early conflicts and develop a healthier relationship to yourself and others. This is achieved through an exploration of those conflicts, emotions, and relationships that have formed your world. Successful psychotherapy results in new psychological insight, additional choices, better expression and experience of feelings, positive behavior change, and improved satisfaction in relationships.