Johanna Wendell, LPC - Affordable Mental Health Therapy in Marietta, Georgia

Acceptance & Commitment Therapy

Defining your values and committing to acting in accordance with those values to live a life of choice and freedom. Being accepting and mindful of your present-moment experiences, instead of judging or avoiding them. Learning that thoughts are just thoughts, not reality that must dictate our actions. Learning how to live in the here-and-now. Experiencing life mindfully and fully.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Learning your cognitive biases and where they stem from, such as childhood. Learning how these cognitive biases negatively impact your emotions and behaviors. Learning how to challenge your negative self-thoughts and break the vicious cycle of our thoughts controlling our emotions and our behaviors. Transforming our ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Exposure & Response Prevention

Learning how to break the vicious cycle of obsessions and compulsions. Gradually being exposed to obsessions, while learning how to resist the urge to engage in compulsions. Learning that compulsions maintain and exacerbate anxiety as opposed to treating it. Through gradual exposure and response prevention, one can break the OCD cycle, as well as lessen the anxiety associated with the obsessions. Exposure therapy also aims to treat specifc and social phobias by gradually being exposed to the feared object, situation or activity in a safe, relatively controlled manner, thereby breaking the pattern of avoidance. This allows new skills, familiarity, and comfort to develop.

Christian Therapy

Using Christian scripture and religious beliefs to conceptualize client's concerns and treatment. Using Christian principles to address family, marital, and individual (e.g., eating disorders, addiction, anxiety, depression, grief, anger, etc) difficulties. Learning what the Christian religion teaches with regard to these concerns. This may involve anything from discussing Biblical passages about what God wants for your life and how to trust in him and lean not on your own understanding, to discussing Christian values, such as defining what is right or wrong about a particular situation and how the Christian concept of sin plays a role in relationships and human behavior. It may also involve helping clients whose religious pasts might have created a sense of self-condemnation that impedes their abilities to address current concerns.

Interpersonal Therapy

Using your relationship with your therapist to uncover patterns of behavior that may reveal themselves in session. These patterns of behavior are often seen across contexts because common situations may trigger them, so the therapist has the unique ability to point them out in session, and help you process the emotions behind the behaviors so that you will be aware of them and learn how to change them in future situations. Involves being present in the here-and-now and being open to transforming these behaviors in order to enhance your relationships and life.

Family Systems Therapy

Looking at the issue at hand as an issue that stems from the family, whether it be due to difficulties with communication, the family dynamics, boundaries, roles, responsibilities, patterns of interaction, etc. Working with the entire family or an individual in the family with this framework in mind. Facilitating positive changes within the systems of the family, such as facilitating communication, patterns of interaction, and healthy boundaries. Transforming the family system as a whole, which will help the entire family as well as every member of the family.