Overview

TRANSITIONS Personal & Family Counseling Services provides clinical counseling intervention and support for persons experiencing or blocking significant life transitions. The design of the program is twofold:

  1. To assist individuals, couples and families in working through crises and impasses in such away as to minimize trauma and facilitate an optimal level of functioning under the circumstances; and

  2. To assist individuals, couples and families in resolving long term intra- or inter-personal conflicts. Such long-term conflicts often stem from the circumstances of not properly negotiating earlier transitions that were precipitated by unavoidable, change-demanding life situations. Some examples of such situations are: life crises, interrupted developmental tasks, addiction/chemical dependency, emotional/physical trauma, sexual dysfunction (psychogenic etiology), conflicted or broken relationships, catastrophic illness (self or in the family), unresolved grief issues and the existential impasse which results from denial and avoidance of some of life's ultimate questions.

Instead of making the a healthy transition through conflict identification, confrontation, recovery, and growth to a higher level of functioning and meaning in life, many of us merely "cope" and become "survivors" or "victims." We may attempt to manage our lives through defense mechanisms and addictive processes such as avoidance and denial. These only serve to postpone, and often increase, the inevitable pain that must be faced as an initial commitment to finally making a healthy transition. The operating philosophy at TRANSITIONS includes the concept that psychological and much physical illness often is, wholly or partly, a consequence of the accumulation and exacerbation of unresolved conflicts which arrest a person's present functional ability and inflict damaging stress on the entire organism.

At TRANSITIONS, the therapeutic focus is to help persons through stages of identifying and confronting the conflict, and developing a program of recovery, change and growth to attain a higher level of functioning and meaning in life. To that end, counseling strategies are eclectic, client centered, holistic and transpersonal; with treatment modalities that may include one or more of the following: individual, group, or marital/couples counseling; family therapy or multiple family therapy. Special retreats/workshops of limited size are sometimes held at the Northbrook setting.

Indications For Referral

In circumstances such as those outlined above, where a person, couple, or family, present as having difficulty working through change-demanding life situations, clinical counseling may be indicated to facilitate a healthy change process or to intervene with a goal of reversing or precluding the emergence of a more significant pathological processes.

At TRANSITIONS, clinical counseling interventions are focused upon persons having conflicts or disorders within the "normative range" of the general population. Persons presenting signs and symptoms consistent with psychosis or neurological disorder are referred for psychiatric, neurological or clinical psychological evaluation and followed-up as indicated. Essentially, this counseling practice functions as a mental health analogue to a family medical practice, often receiving referrals from such settings.

                                To call TRANSITIONS/SoulMentors: (704) 276-1164