First Session FREE!

FIRST SESSION FREE!

January 2015 marks our two-year anniversary, and we want to celebrate by offering YOU a gift!

Throughout the month of January, the first session is FREE. You can have an individual, couple, or family therapy session with a Therapist Intern for FREE! $0! Call 919-941-2900 or email contact@pfeifferreach.org today to schedule your FREE session. Subsequent sessions are $30 each, with a sliding scale available for those in financial need.

Holiday Break

Pfeiffer Institute Reach will be closed for the holidays starting Saturday, December 20. We will reopen for regular hours on Monday, January 5. Have a happy and healthy holiday season!

You Do Not Have to Walk Alone

by Liberty Riley, Reach Therapist Intern

Losing someone you love is hard. Death is never, ever easy. Even when death brings the relief of long-lived pain, it begins a lifetime of hurt, ache, and sadness for those who cared for and loved the person who passed away. Making things even more difficult are the anniversaries: the birthday that is no longer, the date of death, holidays, and personal anniversaries. Life seems to be fraught with reminders of a life once lived and a life now lost.

Being the person who lost a parent, child, sibling, or beloved friend, the pain is real and the loss is deep. Sometimes we try to move forward not knowing how to fill the void that now exists where that person once lived. We can be left feeling orphaned, sad, lonely, angry, confused, and sometimes, depressed.

How do we move out of the pain of our loss and move into a place where we can celebrate a life lived?  How can we put one foot in front of the other in order to honor the person we loved so much?

These questions are not easily answered, but they are often asked. The truth is, the pain of our losses may last a lifetime, but most likely, a time will come when we are able to realize that we are not living without the person we loved, we are simply living with him or her differently. They are no longer in the physical realm, but they are in our mental realm; they are in our hearts, our memories, and our thoughts. If we keep people alive inside of us, they can never be truly gone.

If you have suffered the loss of someone you loved and you need help putting one foot in front of the other, please contact a therapist intern at Pfeiffer Institute Reach at (919) 941-2900. We will walk through this time of pain with you; you do not have to get through this difficult time alone.

Hope That Has Led Me Out of the Darkness

"In a way, that's been the key to my still going strong for all these years. Every time I reach out beyond myself--to my family and friends, to my doctor, to my coworkers and the public to whom we bring the news, to the whole community of people who battle depressive disorders, and to the one i have turned to ever since I was a boy in Brookline--I find hope that has led me out of the darkness."

These words from Mike Wallace highlight a key part of dealing with and recovering from mental illness: reaching out to others for help and support. (For a more detailed story, see Mike Wallace: Speaking to a Nation).

Next week is National Mental Illness Awareness Week, and Thursday is National Depression Screening Day. Both of these times are occasions to educate yourself about mental illness and recognize how you or someone you know may be feeling the effects. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is a great place to start. The more you know, the more you can help reduce the stigma around mental illness, and the barriers to getting help.

If you're looking for help and support, remember that during Mental Illness Awareness Week, your first session is FREE at Pfeiffer Institute Reach! We offer low cost individual, couple, and family therapy, and for the first full week of October, the first session is FREE! Call 919-941-2900 or email contact@pfeifferreach.org today!

Mental Illness Awareness Week

Pfeiffer Institute Reach will offer FREE first sessions during Mental Health Awareness Week (October 5-11).

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), one in four adults and one in five children and teens experience a mental health problem every year. Unfortunately, there are long delays--sometimes decades--between the time symptoms first appear and when people get help. Early identification and treatment can make a difference, but only if a person can get it. 

Barriers to seeking services include lack of awareness, financial burden, lack of transportation, and stigma about acknowledging the need for help. YOU can bring down those barriers by increasing your awareness about mental illness symptoms and treatment at www.nami.org. Pfeiffer Institute Reach helps bring down barriers by providing accessible and affordable individual, couple, and family therapy to members of the community. All of us can work to break down the stigma by encouraging those we care about to get help when needed, and being willing to reach out ourselves. Reach for a better tomorrow at Pfeiffer Institute Reach!

Parenting and Prepare/Enrich

Does this picture look familiar: Angry and frustrated parent trying to get across to a child who seems to be resistant and disrespectful? If that's you - or if you worry that could be you in the future - Pfeiffer Institute Reach has a few ways to help.

1. FREE Parenting Workshop: On Saturday, September 20, there will be a FREE Parenting Workshop focused on appropriate discipline and building a positive relationship with your child. At the same time, there will be a workshop for children ages 6-12 where kids can learn about emotional regulation in a fun and creative environment. Call 919-941-2900 today to reserve your place at the workshop.

2. Couple or family therapy focused on kids and parents: You can schedule an appointment with a Therapist Intern who is trained to talk to you, your-co-parent, and your kids about how to make family life better. No matter the issue - going to bed at a reasonable hour, getting homework done, relationships with siblings or peers, communication among family members - sitting down with someone trained to help can be a great investment of time and money that really pays off in the near and distant future.

3. Prepare/Enrich, the online relationship assessment tool, has a new version specifically to help couples with parenting issues. Maybe you and your partner have different parenting styles, maybe you're creating a blended family, or maybe you need to strengthen communication with your children and partner. Remember, Pfeiffer Institute Reach has nine Therapist Interns trained as Prepare/Enrich facilitators. You can meet with them to go over your Prepare/Enrich Parenting Version results and decide what's going to work best for your family in the future.

Don't have kids yet? You can take the "regular" version of Prepare/Enrich and find out more about your own approach and your partner's.

Make the first step to improve your family relationships - Call Pfeiffer Institute Reach today!

More Therapist Interns Trained in Prepare/Enrich

This past weekend, four Therapist Interns participated in a training workshop which qualified them as Prepare/Enrich Facilitators. This brings us to a grand total of NINE trained facilitators. What does this mean for you? I'll let the creators speak for themselves (this information is copied from the website; emphases mine).

     PREPARE/ENRICH is the leading relationship inventory and skill-building program used nationally and internationally.  It is built on a solid research foundation and significantly improves a couple's relationship. PREPARE/ENRICH is custom tailored to a couple's relationship and provides couple exercises to build their relationship skills.
     The main component of the program is an online survey you each complete in about 30-45 minutes. PREPARE/ENRICH is not just any survey. The items you respond to are based on research and are intended to help you identify the unique strengths and potential growth areas of your premarital or married relationship. You'll meet with a facilitator trained to provide feedback by helping you understand your results and learn important relationship skills. Built on a solid research foundation, PREPARE/ENRICH has been improved and refined over the years to become one of the best, most effective, easy-to-use relationship assessment tools available.
     PREPARE/ENRICH is a customized couple assessment completed online that identifies a couple's strength and growth areas. It is one of the most widely used programs for premarital counseling and premarital education. It is also used for marriage counseling, marriage enrichment, and dating couples considering engagement. Based on a couple's assessment results, a trained facilitator provides 4-8 feedback sessions in which the facilitator helps the couple discuss and understand their results as they are taught proven relationship skills.

Did this sound interesting to you? At Pfeiffer Institute Reach, you can work with a Therapist Intern trained as a Prepare/Enrich Facilitator for a low per-session cost ($30, with a sliding scale for those in need). There are even specialized versions of Prepare/Enrich for couples considering adopting or fostering a child, and for any couples who are parents. The assessment itself is $35. A minor monetary investment in a priceless relationship!