Associated Counseling -- New Programs

Healing from Trauma—Using EMDR

The word “trauma” most often promotes thoughts of war, natural disasters, bombings, or events such as sexual abuse. But the truth is that any horrible event can bring about trauma. If a situation is terrible enough to overwhelm an individual, and if that person does not have coping skills to deal with that event, traumatic stress can occur. This can result in nightmares, applying fears about the traumatic event to everyday events or people, and feeling this event is occurring again and again.

Counselors at Associated Counseling and Wellness Centers help trauma victim process tramautic events successfully through Eye Movement Desensitation reporcessing (EMDR).

EMDR is a process of providing language and meaning to traumatic events and allowing people to successfully verbalize what occurred and to provide new truths about themselves. EMDR is non-invasive and not painful. EMDR utilizes positive supports already in the person’s life with trauma work being done. It avoids the fight or flight response that occurs when the original trauma occurred and overwhelmed the trauma victim. EMDR can deal with the event without evoking this response so that the victim can utilize language, coping skills, and process the situation, providing meaning, and allowing it to end.

“Traumatic stress will not “go away” and people cannot just forget about it without assistance” said Kim Alberts, LCPC CADC CARN RDDP, Clinical Director in the Bradley Office of Associated Counseling. “Trauma often requires language to explain the situation that the victim does not have. This prevents the person from healing and moving forward.”

The amount of exposure to the traumatic situation, whether this was a single incident or multiple incident, whether it was caused by man or by nature, and whether other people were supportive or abandoning all are important in a person’s ability to heal as well.

“For most trauma victims, the brain is not able to determine that this event has ended and they live as though the traumatic event is happening repeatedly. By processing the event, the brain stops repeating the event and understands the event is history and has ended, stopping many of the daily symptoms that the trauma victim was experiencing daily”, says Alberts.

For more information about EMDR, call George Drabik in the Associated Counseling office in Midlothian at 708-597-0032 or Kim Alberts in the Bradley office at 815-929-0099.

Midlothian Staff Offering Program for Families Dealing with ADD/ADHD

When a child lacks interest in going to school or their teachers have more than once mentioned their poor behavior in school, or their room looks like the local garbage dump, they may be suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

School Plus, a new program offered by Associated Counseling and Wellness Center in Midlothian, offers a comprehensive, eight-week treatment program for children suffering from ADD/ADHD and their families. Using a team approach, the program helps children and families learn to better cope with the impact these diagnoses have on their lives. This unique program is designed to assist the family in improving, not only the child’s school performance, but their home environment as well.

Each child will be assessed for ADD/ADHD through a series of questionnaires, instruments and observations. Such issues as stress, anger management, and discipline without anger, self-esteem, and motivation will be discussed in counseling sessions and parent workshops. Experts in the field of education and medicine will give informational parent sessions on brain function and learning styles. Other topics include: family climate, goal setting, and organizational strategies. Individual wellness plans will be designed to address the child’s needs: sleep, nutrition, exercise and medications. Strategies to improve study skills, parent-teacher relationships, understanding the legality of Individual Education Plans (IEPs) and 504 plans along with child advocacy training will be learned at parent sessions.

School Plus was developed by well-known psychotherapist and life coach Dr. Bruce Kornhaber and his wife Kathleen, a retired Special Educator and Exceptional Needs Specialist with 37 years’ experience working in the inner city schools of Chicago. Mrs. Kornhaber is also a Nationally Certified Educator and Mentor for the National Board of Certified Teachers.

School Plus will include eight counseling sessions designed to meet individual family needs. Counselors specializing in child and adolescent therapy will work with parents and children to overcome the difficulties dealing with ADD/ADHD and to find solutions to better functioning family relationships. If a child is already receiving individual counseling with a therapist, that therapist will be kept informed of the progress in School Plus and given recommendations for integrating the goals of the program into the child’s treatment plan.

Three parent workshops will be presented by a National Board Certified Exceptional Needs Specialist, a physician, and a nurse nutritionist. Each child will have an individualized treatment plan based on his/her age, severity of problems, and areas that need the most focus. This treatment plan will be developed after the initial session, and the child and his/her family will be informed of specific treatment goals.

When School Plus has been completed, it will be determined if any follow-up care might be necessary. The cost for the program, which includes three parent workshops and eight individual counseling sessions is $900. A portion of the cost may be covered by insurance.

For registration and workshop location, parents can call 708-597-0032.

Working WELL Together

Associated Counseling’s Employee Assistance Program

Are you seeking to improve or enhance the physical health, educational balance and emotional well-being of your employees?

Then let Associated Counseling become your resource for maintaining wellness with our “Working WELL Together” Employee Assistance Program.

Every employer has employees with problems. They can be marital, legal, financial, medical, or even difficulties with alcohol or substance abuse. Unfortunately, serious personal problems have a way of affecting a person’s whole life, including work. Sometimes the seriousness of the problem extends beyond your ability to help.

Our programs are designed to help you improve and maintain a good level of wellness at your company, while helping reduce your health care costs. They can also help reduce factors which increase the risk of many physical and psychological problems experienced by today’s American workers.

Associated Counseling can design an Employee Assistance Program to meet the needs of your employees. Working under a contract with your firm, we can design, implement and continuously service a structure designed to meet the needs of your employees and their families. Costs are determined by the services selected and the level of insurance coverage your company provides its employees.

Medically-managed and under direct clinical supervision, the Working WELL Together program at Associated Counseling can be an important first step to maintaining the good health of your most important resource- your employees.

Get started today by calling Tara Fracassi at Associated Counseling, 815-929-0099 or 708-597-0032, or by email at info@lifecounselors.net .

Let’s Work WELL Together.