Individual Counseling

Marriage and Couples Counseling

Premarital Counseling

Family Counseling

Child and Adolescent Therapy

Educational and Psychological Evaluation/Testing

Classes and Seminars

Workshops and Seminars

Sexual Addiction

Anger Management

Eating Disorder

Life Adjustment Issues

Depression and Anxiety

Substance Abuse and Use

Premarital Counseling

Low Self-Esteem

Counseling services offered at Stonebriar Counseling Associates include:

Individual counseling is offered to individuals in helping them achieve control over actions through an understanding of how thoughts, feelings, and decisions produce actions. We provide a safe environment where one's private pain can be shared in confidence with a trained therapist to grow in self-awareness and self-esteem while helping a person make decisions, solve problems, and overcome past and present abuses and pains. Sometimes when negative memories prohibit an individual from enjoying a satisfying life, issues in one's family of origin can be explored to understand the past and seek to establish a new identity.

Feelings like fear, sorrow, anger, rejection, and loneliness can lessen as self-acceptance and coping skills are encouraged and strengthened.

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Marriage and couples counseling provides an arena where two people can learn to communicate individual needs and find ways to resolve relationship differences. All marriages go through difficult times. We are committed to helping couples identify the sources of dissatisfaction and conflict, and help couples develop new strategies for solving those problems. The goal of marriage counseling is the resolution of conflict: the development and strengthening of communication skills, and the growth of intimacy and mutual acceptance. With the help of a counselor, couples are taught problem solving skills in areas, such as, sexuality, parenting, and conflict resolution.  It is our goal to strengthen communication so that as couples begin to address issues conflict becomes resolved and warmth and intimacy are rekindled. Counselors assess each partner's areas of need, and facilitate problem-solving in areas such as time management, finances, child-rearing, and sexuality.

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Premarital counseling can help pave the way to a partnership that grows and lasts. Our therapists encourage couples to explore potential strengths and needs in the relationship, to discuss and resolve areas of disagreement, to develop a vision for the future, and to accept each other as individuals. The Taylor Johnson Temperament Analysis is used to discuss strengths and explore areas where further growth is advised. In order to develop communication that goes beyond surface level communication and selfishness a couple must understand that the relationship cannot be taken for granted with little desire to give attention to the other.

Attempting to establish a new course in life with one’s future partner can be emotionally and physically exhausting. Therefore, if there is any wind of self-centeredness within the storm of one’s anger and frustration the engaged person can find themselves propelled from gradually making any effort to work on such issues. Rather than seek measures to deepen the relationship and return to shore so that the both of them can learn how to become one flesh, their ship aimlessly wanders over the course of time with the assumption that the marriage is as good as it is going to get. At this point, there is a subtle inference between both partners in refusing to make any changes- personally or corporately. So many marriages that have been taken for granted present themselves with a false appearance before family and friends. In fact, issues are dealt with on a superficial level rather than working through one’s feelings so as to develop emotional intimacy. Therefore, our counselors will provide a warm, encouraging context to clarify, identify, and enhance effective communication tools so as to help each couple with strong lasting relationships.

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Family counseling helps family members gain an understanding of disruptive problems and improve communication skills so as to provide new ways of reaching solutions that lead to greater family harmony. Family counseling also enables the various family members to interact with honesty and acceptance and to lessen family habits that cause pain and unhealthy behaviors. Families often come for counseling when they have difficulty resolving an issue, when there is tension in one or more relationships, or perhaps when they are struggling with a particular life transition (birth, death, marriage, divorce, relocation, retirement). Parenting and step-parenting are a common focus of counseling as well. At Stonebriar Counseling Associates, we understand that every family is unique, so a counselor might work with an entire family group or some combination of its members.

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Group Therapy provides a context of others who are seeking to understand and change patterns that have been harmful in the past. This is where several people meet with a counselor in a group.  The focus is often on a common set of issues, and is especially effective in treating addictions and harmful patterns of thinking. A powerful facet of this type of treatment is the added accountability and support from the different group members. We offer ongoing groups for boundaries (women only), sexual addictions (men only), and for couples in couples communication.

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Child and Adolescent Therapy. A therapist will assess the young person's development in the context of his family, school, and community. New coping and decision making skills are explored. Parents are encouraged to work with the therapist in encouraging the child's growth and development.

Biofeedback and Stress/Pain Management. Learning about what your body is doing and how it interacts with your mind can help a great deal in overcoming stress and stress-related problems. Anxiety and panic disorders, migraines and headaches, Raynaud's syndrome (cold hands), blepharospasm (eyelid tic), high blood pressure, temporomandibular joint pain (TMJ) and other specific pain problems, and pain management in general, are applications typically addressed with biofeedback. The therapy is enjoyable, and is basically advanced, technology-assisted relaxation training. It is usually coupled with some cognitive-behavioral counseling in order to help apply and generalize the biofeedback training. Clients are given tapes and materials to help them practice the skill at home. Most applications require 12-15 sessions, but there are some that may take longer. Questions? Call us and one of our biofeedback practitioners will contact you to answer questions and, if desired, set up an intake.

To be clear, neurofeedback (or EEG biofeedback) can be used to assist greatly with most ADD/ADHD cases, alcohol addiction, epilepsy, and closed head injury. We are not yet set up for this type of biofeedback, but may be so in the future.

Issues Addressed and Services Offered for Children and Adolescents:

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Educational and Psychological Evaluation/Testing is offered to both children and adults for evaluating specific strengths and weaknesses for school and occupational needs.

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Classes and Seminars are conducted to provide instruction in topics such as Anger Management, Stress, Parenting, Parenting of Adolescents and Couple Communications. The classes and seminars are taught at our office or at various churches in the community.

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Workshops and Seminars

For a more complete list, call Stonebriar Counseling Associates @ 214-642-8737

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Guest Speakers & Retreat Leaders: Our therapists are available to speak to your Church group, retreat, or other group, on topics related to Mental Health concerns.

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Sexual Addiction

It no longer is difficult for men to go out of their way to find pornography. Today they can get it just about anywhere. It's available at gas stations, grocery stores, video rental outlets, hotels, the workplace, and even in the home. Those with Internet access merely need a click of the mouse to download sexually graphic images and stories while their wives tuck their children in bed in the next room. In fact, the number of people using pornography on the internet is growing so fast that the Playboy Web site alone averages over 5 million hits a day. Whether a man is married or single, he is in danger of transmitting the infection of pornography into his current or future marriage. Contrary to what Hollywood or the media would have us believe, sexually explicit material does not enhance sex between a husband and wife. Pornography creates unrealistic demands about the frequency of sex, intimidation, lack of respect and the nature of a woman's sexual response, to name just a few. The fantasy world of pornography places unrealistic expectations that only end up with feelings of emptiness and resentment. Recognizing what men get out of pornography is vital. It is important to see how they use porn to cope with whatever difficulties they are dealing with. Those who find themselves sliding down a slippery slope of destruction end up withdrawing from others and from God. They lack faith in the One who suffered the ultimate price to be able to accept them. They lack the hope and vision for the kind of men they could be and what they could accomplish for God. Consequently, it is imperative to help them regain purpose that comes from living for the sake of something greater than oneself. The situation may seem bleak, but the Spirit of God can rebuild faith, renew hope, and awaken a purpose that can replace and put to death an idolatrous demand for pornography. Secondly, Admitting to having an out-of-control sexual struggle is one of the hardest confessions a man may ever make but it is essential for the healing process to begin. An addicted man must acknowledge his pride and the lies he has convinced himself in believing. Thirdly, he must acknowledge his addiction in the safety and confidentiality of another person (I Thess. 2:11-12). In a day and age where individuality reigns, Satan wants men to hide their struggles so he can get them alone and deceive them with lies such as "the problem is under control" or "you will never change." But men who start to talk about their struggles with others who can help them change will begin to see that there is light at the end of the tunnel.    

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Anger Management

The first step in controlling anger is to admit that you are angry.  Anger is typically denied as long as possible because it is socially unacceptable to be angry. While the relatively recent emphasis on venting all anger has lessened the social stigma, unexpressed anger still underlies much of the depression, anxiety, tension, and other physical disorders which plague people living in modern society. Emotions tend to increase in strength when they go unacknowledged. Admitting you are angry soon after experiencing the anger allows you to more easily deal with this powerful and potentially dangerous emotion.

Once we admit to ourselves that we are angry, we can take the next step and look for the hurt, fear or injustice that underlies our anger. Finding the primary emotion underlying our anger allows us to identify those actions or attitudes that effectively deal with the source of our anger rather than merely masking symptoms or temporarily alleviating the intensity of our anger.

Every emotion is based on a perception of what has happened to us. In other words, what we believe about what happens determines how we feel about what happens. This is a key concept in learning to deal with the primary emotions that lead to our anger.

In order to act appropriately once we have admitted to ourselves that we are angry and have identified the primary emotions underlying our anger, we must consider whether or not our perception causing the primary emotion is accurate. Often, challenging our perception of an event is enough to change the primary emotion and thus completely defuse our anger. At other times, merely identifying our primary emotions makes other solutions to the anger evoking events more obvious. Either way, we lessen the intensity of our emotions (when necessary or desirable) to allow us to act calmly and with forethought.

Anger does not have to be destructive. Used wisely, the energy of our anger can greatly improve our day to day lives.  You have a right to your feelings. It is the strength of the emotional reaction that hurts you and what you do with that feeling that hurts others. Don’t wait until the courts force you to seek therapy or until your partner walks out on you to get help. We can teach you how to deal with unpleasant feelings and improve control issues in relationships. Regain a positive perspective in your life and do not allow your anger to ruin it. We will help you to deal with your emotions, communicate your thoughts and feelings without intense conflict, and to relax your emotional ‘muscles’ while feeling good about yourself.

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Eating Disorders.

Whether you are struggling in your relationship with yourself, others, or food, you need to learn to cope with emotional loneliness and distress. That emptiness you feel is not exactly hunger. It is really how you struggle in your relationship with you. Learn from us how to develop a healthy approach to eating and to your emotions. If you use food to calm or sooth yourself or you are struggling with your weight or body-image, we can help. Avoid the destructive tendencies of having an eating problem and let us guide you in the personal growth of becoming a healthy person who can be in charge of your own life. Come and break free of the power that food may have over your life. Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia are two of the most common eating disorders. Both result in self-induced starvation and both require extensive, professional help to overcome.

Victims of anorexia nervosa continue perceiving themselves as fat despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They limit their intake, often through elaborate rituals or limitations on the types of foods they eat even though their family encourages or insists that they eat more. Anorexics frequently use extensive exercise to bring their body shape more into line with their distorted ideal image. They also frequently use laxatives, diet pills, diuretics, and excessive coffee as weight loss aids.

Bulimia is more frequent and less noticeable than anorexia.  Bulimics go through cycles of binging and purging, taking in large quantities of food, often high caloric foods, and then eliminating them through regurgitation or the use of laxatives and diuretics. Typically not as thin as anorexics, bulimics often feel dominated by their disease and desperately seek help.

Control is a central issue for all those with eating disorders. Anorexics typically allow others to control them. They then find satisfaction by substituting control of their eating for the satisfaction that should come through mastering far more important areas of their lives. Growing up as well-behaved and  submissive children of good, directed, and ambitious parents, anorexics never developed a sense of independence or self-determination.

Bulimics, on the other hand, use their eating as a way of avoiding uncomfortable emotions. They "eat" their emotions with their food and then expel their emotions while also purging themselves of their food. The resulting guilt gives them more to stuff and so the cycle continues.

Long term physical symptoms include tooth decay or loss, brain shrinkage, poor hair texture or hair loss, poor complexion, cessation of menstruation, skin dryness, abdominal pain, heart shrinkage, depression, muscle weakness or spasms, electrolyte imbalances, kidney problems, and sometimes, death.

Treatment for an eating disorder may begin with a confrontation in which family and/or friends present their concerns in a loving and supportive way. Treatment only becomes more difficult and prospects for success decrease the longer an eating disorder goes untreated. Hospitalization may be necessary at the beginning of treatment to safeguard the well-being of the patient and monitor food intake. Victims of eating disorders have become masters at deception and denial while perhaps even deceiving themselves into thinking that they don't have much of a problem. When possible, the whole family (or at least the parents) should be involved in therapy.

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Life Adjustment Issues

Whether you've lost a loved one, going through a divorce, dealing with an unexpected serious health problem, or facing a parenting problem, crises come to us all. Crises interrupt our usual daily course, throwing us out of balance and out of our routine, and throw us into a variety of feelings. Our feelings can include fear, worry, panic, disappointment, guilt, anger, and sadness and make us aware of our vulnerability and limits. Crises demand our attention.

Recognizing and honoring feelings is an important beginning in understanding the crisis. Naming what you feel and making a time and place to take them seriously is good stewardship of yourself, of others, and of the situation. Knowing what you feel can also be another step - that of using the feelings to plan a course of action to deal constructively with the crisis. Sometimes it helps to write feelings down or to keep a journal of them. Many people benefit from talking to a trusted friend, therapist, or pastor about their feelings. It helps to sort them out feelings and to gain perspective with another person.

Gaining awareness and strength within a community can turn a crisis into a redemptive moment. One can grasp faith in a new way, make faithful choices and learn to trust God's providence more deeply in a crisis. God can bring order out of chaos, growth out of pain, hope from uncertainty, relationship and health from loss.

Call us at Stonebriar Counseling Associates and make an initial appointment to assess the problem and determine a suitable treatment response.

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Depression and Anxiety.

We help you learn about what causes depression and build your coping skills with greater knowledge about what generates fearful responses as well as how to abolish feeling overwhelmed by these emotions. Each individual learns the difference between healthy and harmful types of fear. Definition: Anxiety is a common reaction to changes or demands in everyday life. It protects us from many dangers, heightens our alertness and prepares our bodies for action. But anxiety is not normal when it becomes unusually intense or overwhelming and interferes with daily living. Such anxiety disorders point to inappropriately learned behavior, unconscious (or even conscious) conflicts, and sometimes to chemical imbalances.

Symptoms:
Shortness of breath or feeling smothered, dizziness/faintness, accelerated heart rate, shakiness, sweating, choking, nausea and other abdominal distress, numbness or tingling, flushes or chills, and chest pain or discomfort are all reliable indicators of anxiety. Severity can range from mildly disturbing to almost totally disabling. More specific and severe symptoms include:

Unreasonable terror, dread, or panic of specific situations, people, or objects (Simple Phobia)

Repetitious and unwanted thoughts and/or behaviors (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)

Recurrent and intrusive thoughts, dreams, or acting out of past events (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)

Unreasonable and unpredictable fear about several life circumstances (Generalized Anxiety Disorder)

Treatment:
Anxiety disorders are among the most common and most successfully treated mental health problems.  Psychotherapeutic approaches alone or in combination with medications will successfully relieve most anxiety disorders.  Depending on the type and severity of symptoms, outpatient therapy, more intensive day treatment, or even hospitalization can be used in helping people recover.

Recovery:
Recovery begins with identifying and facing our fears. Our fears are real and they will not go away simply by wishing them away. Our imagination usually exaggerates our fears and facing them brings them down to more manageable proportions.

Recovery continues with examining the source of our fears. Sometimes our past experiences have led us to unreasonable conclusions about our safety or comfort and reviewing our past can provide valuable clues on how we might better cope with the things which are most frightening to us now.

The third step in recovery from our fears involves substituting more appropriate thoughts for those which spring from our experiences and overwhelm today's hope with yesterday's disappointment.

Finally, careful and continual practice of the first three steps allow us to experience greater peace in our day to day lives.

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Substance Abuse and Use

Our use of and attachments with alcohol provide most complex relationships. With the exception of those addicted to nicotine and caffeine, more people are addicted to alcohol than any other substance. As many as 90% of adults in the United States have had some experience with alcohol, and 60% of men and 30% of women have had one or more alcohol-related adverse life events. While not all drinking is problem drinking, there is an unfortunate group of persons (about 7% of the population) for whom the use of and attachment to alcohol is part of a tragic story. We are unable to determine those for whom drinking will be a problem and those for whom it will not, but through a progressive pattern it can reek a pattern of destruction to parts or all of life-to the organism, to intimate relations, to the family, to the community, and to one's vocation. Estimates of persons, in the United States alone, at some stage of alcoholism exceed ten million.

Our current understanding is that alcoholism is a disease-a compulsive and addictive illness in which there is continuing excessive use of alcoholic beverages that result in damage-and frequently outside the awareness of the alcoholic. Alcohol dependence, alcohol abuse, alcohol intoxication, alcohol withdrawal, and alcohol-induced disorders have special meanings in mental health understandings, but all describe presentations of a drinking problem. A clinician can help you understand these experiences within yourself or with someone you love. There are infinite presentations of how alcohol becomes a problem in a person's life. All stereotypes of the alcoholic give way to the imaginative ways that a person can shape his or her life around the need to drink and experience the effects of alcohol. Other mental health disorders can appear with alcoholism, but, generally, it is best to face one's problems with alcohol, before tackling other mental health problems.

Therapy with alcoholics generally involves detoxification, searching for what motivates them to accept the need for help, interrupting the addictive cycle, and helping the alcoholic rebuild a life without alcohol. Joining Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or entering an inpatient treatment program is often a needed part of a therapeutic intervention.