On Course Psychological Counseling

ON COURSE COMPREHENSIVE INNER COMPASS DBT & MBT PROGRAM

FOR EATING DISORDERS & COMPLEX TRAUMA

On COURSE inner compass Program

A Comprehensive DBT AND MBT Program for compleX TRAUMA & EATING DISORDERS

A compass needs to be flat in order to calibrate. Keeping it flat helps internal sensors such as magnetometers and accelerometers to properly calculate one’s orientation. Imagine the role of an internal compass that needs to be calibrated. Meditating and grounding oneself can help balance emotions and bring mental clarity. Mental clarity helps improve reflective functioning skills and mentalization which help us regulate our emotions so that guidance and decision making do not derail life’s journey.

Sometimes when we experience overwhelming experiences, such as trauma, our nervous system has difficulty processing it. These feelings can be especially difficult when the trauma exposure is repeated. Trauma is when someone is exposed to a situation that threatens physical and emotional safety. Complex trauma is repeated exposure to unwanted and emotionally unsafe experiences that are overwhelming to cope with. Our brain helps us to manage the overwhelming and helpless experience by allowing defense mechanisms to help us cope, such as humor during a stressful time or dissociation so we repress the experience until we are ready to face it. Experiencing emotional pain repeatedly can evoke feelings of helplessness associated with not having control. Our brain has difficulty turning off the anxiety associated with the emotional pain even after there is no longer any exposure to the danger. Our amygdala is our emotional processing center and threat detector in our brain. It is a part of the brain that helps us remember a smell or feeling associated with extreme emotions, such as joy, fear, or sadness. When we repress memories they resurface when similar feelings associated with past trauma are experienced. Unless we face these feelings they can resurface several times when we are unprepared to experience them. Feeling safe physically is different from feeling safe emotionally. While having control over not being physically exposed to unpleasant traumatic experiences brings about a sense of safety, emotional safety can still be out of reach. When left untreated, these feelings can come out when we least expect it and in ways that we never expected, such as eating disorders, addiction, emotional dysregulation resulting in conflicts with the people closest to us.

Mentalizing is the process of being able to understand our own inner desires and intentions as well as those who we interact with. Another aspect that helps us internally and interpersonally is to be able to understand the dialectical aspects of our thoughts so we can stop seeing things as two extremes and understand the many possible parts in between. Mentalization based therapy uses self-reflection to help gain insight regarding one’s feelings, desires and emotional needs which are often neglected. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy helps to understand the opposing thoughts that we feel when we have interpersonal conflicts or internally fight with ourselves. This comprehensive unique program blends both approaches, providing psychoeducation and teaching coping skills for mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness, while helping to improve self-awareness and reflective functioning skills.

Inner compass parent - child Program

The Parent-Child relationship is complex and gets tested during pre-adolescence, adolescence and young adulthood. Navigating your way through parenting while coping with frequent conflicts can be challenging. Learn tools to help you find your way so you can help guide your child to find theirs too.

Mentalization Based Therapy is used to help improve reflective parenting and can help you and your child to improve communication and feel more understood, which can reduce the frequency of conflicts. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy provides the tools to help increase mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness by providing psychoeducation and encouraging practice to implement the coping skills.

The following services are provided in this comprehensive program:

• Individual therapy

• Group therapy:

  • The following evidence-based group therapies are provided:

    • Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT):

      This evidence based group teaches coping skills to manage stressors. The foundation is based on 4 core modules:

      • mindfulness,

      • distress tolerance,

      • emotional dysregulation

      • interpersonal effectiveness.

      The core mindfulness skills involve states of mind including emotional mind, reasonable mind and wise mind. Interpersonal effectiveness aims to address break downs in interpersonal communication and teach effective communication skills and assertiveness training. The emotional dysregulation aims to help reduce unwanted emotions and reduce vulnerability to them by providing psychoeducation. The Distress Tolerance aims to promote acceptance of things that cannot be changed. These modules work together to teach skills that aim to promote self-awareness and improve emotional regulation, as well as improve decision making skills and assertive communication skills.

    • Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT):

      Mentalizing means making efforts to understand your own thoughts and feelings and those of others. Efforts to understand how our behavior impacts others can help people to feel understood and reduce misunderstandings that lead to conflicts. Mentalization Based Therapy helps improve reflective functioning skills which helps to improve decision making and emotional regulation.

      Learn ways to gain self-awareness and self-control over your emotions. Learn to gain awareness of your own feelings and behaviors associated with reactions which can happen so fast that it is difficult to process. This group helps people to reduce reactionary responses and improve emotional regulation.

    • Mind & Body connection: Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which includes yoga and meditation

• Family therapy

• Psychoeducational seminars are provided for preadolescents, adolescents and adults manifesting symptoms associated with mental health issues commonly associated with developmental trauma experiences and eating disorders, such as anxiety, depression, and emotional dysregulation. 

• Nutritional counseling is also provided to help improve mindful eating habits. 

• Psychological assessments required for bariatric surgery are also provided if needed.

Increase mindfulness and self-awareness — Learn coping skills to manage symptoms — Gain insight that can promote change

-Improve reflective functioning skills — Improve distress tolerance and emotional regulation skills— Improve communication skills

Empower yourself by letting your inner compass guide you toward better decision making and finding inner peace.

The On Course Inner Compass DBT program and MBT program are out of network.