A Team Approach to Therapy

Therapist Interns at Pfeiffer Institute Reach help their clients by using a team approach. These "teams" take several different formats.

First and foremost, the Therapist Intern has a supervisor who is licensed in Marriage and Family Therapy. The Therapist Intern and supervisor meet together at least once a week to discuss the Intern's clients - what has happened in the most recent session, the Intern's plans to help the client to change, and the Intern's relationship (aka alliance) with the client. The supervisor listens to the Intern's description, asks questions about the Intern and the client, and sometimes observes recordings of the session. All of this happens in the effort to (1) improve the Intern's skills and (2) benefit the client's therapy.

Second, the Therapist Intern has a group of peers who also hear about clients and sometimes watch sessions. With the supervisor as facilitator, this group also works to help the Therapist Intern think "outside the box" about how to be helpful to the client, and improve the Intern's therapy skills. Together, these teams (supervisor and peers) are why we tell prospective clients that they're getting multiple therapists for the price of one - and a low price at that!

The third "team" includes helpers outside of Reach who are involved with the client. These team members might be doctors, lawyers, teachers, or religious leaders who make up the client's support network. Therapist Interns collaborate with these outside team members (with the client's written permission) in order to coordinate the effort to help the client make changes. While this team isn't as directly involved in the actual therapy - indeed, they don't learn the particulars of what happens in session - they are integral parts of helping the client make and maintain progress in their lives.

This systems perspective (i.e., client is seen as part of a network rather than a lone entity) is part of what makes Marriage and Family Therapy different from other mental health fields. Its part of the benefit clients receive when they come to Pfeiffer Institute Reach. If you'd like to become part of our team - or if you'd like to learn more about us - please contact us today: 919-941-2900 or pfeiffer.reach@pfeiffer.edu.

Why Seek Therapy

by Jacquie Beech, Reach Therapist Intern

        For decades, therapy was often assumed to be "reserved" for the severely mentally ill – those who were schizophrenic or for whatever reason, were seen as unable to handle their own life.  As a result of that stigma, some may feel that if they attend therapy, it must mean they are severely mentally disturbed or unable to handle their own lives.  However, around the 1960s and 1970s, psychologists and therapists began to look at mental health in a new way, a more realistic way – it is NOT an all or nothing thing.  There was a shift in the mental health field.  It is not that we are either severely mentally ill OR perfectly healthy and happy.  They began to see the space in between, where most of us live – that sometimes during our lives, we could use some help in managing relationships, stress, transitions, job loss, death, dealing with long term illness, parenting difficulties, day to day anxiety, adjusting to coming back from serving in the military, and many other challenges like these.  Mental health counseling still includes and is helpful for severe mental illness but has also come to include everyone who is dealing with … life.  

        At Pfeiffer Institute Reach clinic, therapy provides:

• A safe place to say exactly how you feel without being judged

• Space to talk about the topics that are important to you

• Time for your own personal growth

• An unbiased, caring person who can help you to connect the pieces of what’s going on in order to help you see your way through difficult times

• A place for individuals, couples, and families to come together to work out differences in a safe and fair way – where everyone’s voice is heard

At Reach, we do not provide the answers for you.  We know that you are the expert on your own life.  What we can do is help you to sort out what is going on, to see things more clearly, perhaps in a new way, so that solutions begin to emerge out of our time together. What is unique about our approach at Reach is we are trained in how to work successfully with couples and families as well as individuals.  With couples and families, we provide communication skills that you take with you to use as situations arise in the future.  Come visit us – we are a community resource here to help!