Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT – said as one word, not the letters) is a therapy that has gained increasing attention in recent years. ACT emphasizes processes such as mindfulness, acceptance and values in helping patients overcome obstacles in their lives.

A basic assumption of ACT is that suffering is a normal and unavoidable part of human experience and that it is actually people’s attempts to control or avoid their own painful experiences that lead to much long-term suffering.

ACT helps people learn ways to let go of the struggle with pain, be more mindful, get clarity on what really matters to them, and commit to living full, vibrant lives. The goal of therapy is not to eliminate painful parts of one’s experience of life, but rather to learn how to experience life more fully, without as much struggle, and with vitality and commitment.

The focus of Behavioral Activation (BA) is to change a person’s mood by enhancing their activities and behaviors.

Depressed people often become trapped in a vicious cycle in which they withdraw or avoid previously pleasurable activities or no longer participate in activities that give them a sense of accomplishment. The more they withdraw the less they feel their life is rewarding, and they may sink lower into a depression.

BA “activates” people to help them break out of this vicious cycle. The goal is to enhance a person’s daily activities, structure and sense of accomplishment in order to improve mood. For example, a person with depression may avoid going out to lunch with friends, which can lead to more isolation and less opportunity to experience social contact, warmth and support. BA helps patients recognize what activities have fallen away, and helps them re-establish a pattern of more rewarding activities. As people experience more rewarding activities, their depression begins to lift.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is an effective psychotherapy for a wide range of conditions including depression and bipolar disorders, anxiety, trauma-related issues, impulse control problems, personality disorders, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and insomnia.

CBT is an active, collaborative approach that often involves the use of homework or experimenting with new activities, communication patterns, alternative thinking, and problem-solving for difficult life problems. Typically, the therapy lasts from 8 to 20 sessions, although it may last longer depending on the individual needs of the patient.

Learning to consistently think in more adaptive ways and modify behaviors can help to reduce a wide range of symptoms. Many people report that these changes lead to increased meaning, satisfaction, and happiness in their lives and relationships. For example, there is strong evidence from research that CBT helps to prevent the relapse of depression by helping people learn new coping, problem-solving, and thinking strategies.

In addition to therapists who may utilize general principles of CBT, we also have therapists trained in specific CBT treatments:

• For trauma: Cognitive Processing Therapy, Prolonged Exposure, Narrative Exposure Therapy, and Trauma-Focused CBT
• For insomnia: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (see more below)

      

CBT-I is a specific type of therapy for insomnia. It is a structured treatment in which therapists help patients identify underlying causes of insomnia and address them. Techniques may include developing healthy sleep-related thoughts and behaviors and strengthening the conditioned response of the body to sleep. CBT-I is now the first-line recommended treatment for insomnia by the American College for Physicians.

The cCBT program includes access to a 9-module online Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) program that teaches strategies to assist with depression, anxiety, and/or stress.

Eligibility: The cCBT program is currently available for age 18 years and older

For more information, see the cCBT page.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) was developed to treat problems in regulating emotions. Although DBT was originally designed to treat chronically suicidal and self-injurious behavior, it has since been adapted to treat a variety of other problems and is often useful for people struggling with mood disorders and anxiety.

DBT combines techniques from cognitive-behavioral therapy with mindfulness and acceptance techniques. In DBT, clients are taught more skillful ways to regulate their emotions, deal with distressing situations in their lives, and improve relationships with people around them. These skills are taught in group and individual therapy and offer practical methods for creating a “life worth living”.

Exposure Therapy is a specific type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that is highly effective for treating anxiety disorders and trauma. The focus is on helping people learn strategies to gradually face their fears in a structured and paced way. Exposure Therapy is effective for many forms of anxiety but is particularly effective for people who experience trouble with frequent panic attacks, social anxiety or specific fears such as fear or heights or flying.

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy
Exposure therapy is a highly effective intervention to address specific fears and related anxieties. Using Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) as a therapeutic tool, patients are able to confront their fears such as snakes, flying on an airplane or public speaking, in a simulated and safe environment.

VRET treatment, with or without pharmaceutical intervention, provides a new hope for patients whose fears interfere with daily life. Patients are guided by the VRET experience, at an appropriate pace, in the comfort of the clinician’s office. Treatment focuses on adults, adolescents, specific phobias, panic disorder and agoraphobia, and social anxiety disorder.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR Therapy) is an empirically supported therapeutic modality developed to treat trauma and distressing life experiences. For some people, memories of difficult life events can feel stuck and challenging to get past, leading to distress and trauma symptoms. EMDR therapy utilizes eye movements (or other forms of dual attention stimulation) to help the brain’s natural healing process and address these unresolved memories. After EMDR therapy, while the memory of the event remains in some form, the emotional charge associated with the event and related symptoms are often resolved. 

Collaboration between the EMDR therapist and client are at the core of successful EMDR therapy, with clients having autonomy to make many decisions about the process including what memories are targeted, how much of that memory is discussed, and pacing of the sessions.  

Our family therapy/couples therapy is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of interaction between family members, and it emphasizes family relationships as an important factor in psychological health.

We offer several therapies including The Gottman Method and Family Focused Therapy (FFT) and treatment options for family therapy/couples therapy, including treatments for specific disorders. For families struggling with a member who has bipolar disorder, we use Family Focused Therapy, a scientifically proven treatment strategy for helping families cope with the stresses of dealing with bipolar disorder.

Family-focused treatment (FFT) is a psycho-educational treatment for patients with bipolar disorder (BD) focused on alleviation of mood symptoms, relapse prevention, and enhanced psychosocial functioning.

The protocol consists of three modules:

1. Psychoeducation: the family learns about symptoms of bipolar disorder, develops coping skills to address symptoms and stressors, and develops a relapse prevention plan;

2. Communication Enhancement Training: the family learns a range of skills to improve maladaptive communication patterns;

3. Problem-Solving Skills: the therapist teaches specific skills to address problems that create conflict in the home.

The FFT treatment protocol includes session-by-session instructions for each of these modules, as well as supplements clinicians can use to address suicidality, anxiety disorders, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and behavioral problems. FFT has been adapted for use with adults and youth with bipolar disorder, as well as those who are at high risk for developing bipolar disorder, and is available in 21- and 12-session versions.

Research indicates that FFT can be used effectively with adults (Miklowitz, 2003a, 2003b; Rea et al. 2003), adolescents (Miklowitz, 2008), and high-risk youth (Miklowitz and Chang, 2008; 2010) and their families. Across 10 randomized controlled trials, use of FFT has been associated with reduced depressive symptoms, decreased risk of recurrence, and improved psychosocial functioning/quality of life. FFT is associated with reduced rates of re-hospitalization over two years, in part because patients and caregivers learn to identify and intervene with early signs of recurrence (Rea, 2003). Furthermore, inclusion of family members in FFT means that clinicians have the opportunity to provide skills to not only the BD patient, but also to other impacted family members who attend sessions; as such, FFT is a particularly cost-effective way to increase treatment access for multiple individuals within a family.

Group therapy can be an ideal treatment for some patients struggling with particular problems. Many groups are designed to target a specific problem, such as depression, bipolar disorder, panic disorder or social anxiety disorder. Many patients feel comforted hearing that others have struggled with similar difficulties, and often find help in hearing how others may have worked through similar problems.

Other groups focus more generally on improving social skills, strategies for healthy living, or dealing with low self-esteem. In these groups, the focus is on learning new skills, so the group is more like a class, in which the group will learn and practice different techniques, but may not deal with specific problems in the group setting.

We periodically offer groups throughout the year. Groups are usually composed of 5-15 patients and are run by one or more psychologists, psychiatrists, nurse practitioners or licensed clinical social workers. For more information contact us at Depression.Center@ucdenver.edu.

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) techniques serve as a method of empowering individuals through awareness, acceptance, and being present. Mindfulness is a term that means paying attention, in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally. Practicing mindfulness can change patterns of thinking that lead to a spiral of depressive thoughts and behaviors.

Mindfulness techniques and practice may be woven into a specific evidence-based treatment as one component of an intervention or individuals may participate in mindfulness groups. In addition to becoming better acquainted with internal and external triggers for mood symptoms, participants will learn the benefits of taking action and engaging in self-care in the real world where they are likely to feel their most vulnerable.

Core aims of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy are to prevent future depressive episodes as well as to assist individuals in changing their fundamental relationship with old, inaccurate or negative thinking patterns.

Contemporary Psychodynamic Therapy focuses on identifying how past experiences may contribute to problematic life patterns. Though insight and examination in looking at life patterns, people become more able to change maladaptive patterns and experience happier, more meaningful lives. Brief psychodynamic therapy is useful in treating a wide range of mental health problems.