Therapy Education

Using sensory interventions can help regulate your body when you're in a stressful or overwhelming situation. By utilizing one of your senses, your mind and body can focus on a specific stimulus, which will ground you and calm your thoughts. Sensory tools and toys can help with this. How do sensory interventions work? The first step to successful sensory intervention is to assess which of your senses is most perceptive to stimulation. Once you choose between touch, taste, sound, sight, and smell, you can focus on that sense as a grounding exercise. Stimulate the primary sense you've chosen any [...]

Many people are affected by trauma at some point in their life. Symptoms of trauma can include anxiety, confusion, agitation, dissociation, and more. Luckily, there are treatments for issues caused by trauma. There are also many ways to alleviate symptoms. Yoga and trauma-sensitive meditation can help calm and ease anxieties that result from traumatic experiences. Trauma-Sensitive Yoga Trauma-sensitive yoga is a great way to help manage and decrease symptoms that arise from trauma. This type of yoga focuses on getting out of your body's stress response and entering into a relaxation response [...]

Just about everyone experiences trauma. Trauma can be anything that brings large amounts of distress emotionally and/or physically that can last long after the traumatic experience. Something that is traumatic to one person may not seem traumatic to another, so people might minimize their own traumatic experiences, but all trauma and all experiences are valid. No matter what kind of trauma someone has gone through, there are a variety of treatments and therapy models that can help. These might include EMDR or Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT). Trauma-sensitive yoga can be [...]

Little bodies can be stressed with big emotions. Frustration, anger, and anxiety can bubble up quickly and be hard to rein in without the right tools. Learning how to regulate these feelings can be fun! Lots of regulation strategies for kids can actually look just like play. Children can experience a variety of mental health issues, including: Anxiety and Depression Attachment Disorder ADHD/ADD Autism Spectrum Disorders Early Childhood Mental Health Issues Behavior Issues Childhood Trauma Sensory Processing Disorders/Difficulties And More Many Village counselors are specially trained to [...]

Cuddling isn’t usually part of a counseling session, except when Dr. Spencer Reid is in the room. Dr. Spencer Reid is a four-legged mental health professional. The golden retriever assists Village Therapist and Clinical Supervisor Shauna Erickson-Abou Zahr with her Moorhead, Minnesota-area clients, most of whom are children, adolescents, and young adults. Shauna and Dr. Spencer Reid (named for the “Criminal Minds” character) became a family 6 years ago when he was a puppy. Shauna knew she wanted to implement animal-assisted therapy, and Dr. Spencer Reid was just the dog for that. She had grown [...]

Sometimes in life, we hear just the right piece of advice at just the right moment. In honor of Mental Health Month, celebrated every May, therapists, counselors, and mental health practitioners from The Village Family Service Center shared their favorite mental health tips, mantras, and bits of wisdom that clients have said helped them to change their thinking and move forward. Hopefully these ideas can help you find a different way to think about a situation or to cope better during a difficult time. Remember, with The Village, you don't have to go it alone. Mental Health Tips & Tricks Be [...]

While we are in many ways still bound to our primal instincts, we’ve evolved as human beings. In times of conflict, we can communicate our complex thoughts and emotions. I believe we owe it to our ancestors to address conflict by communicating. How to Address Conflict It starts with defining the problem. A common mistake is to identify a person as the conflict rather seeing the choices, behaviors, circumstances, or the interactions as the cause of conflict. It’s easy to blame others. Blame distracts from our behaviors and removes our responsibility to make changes. However, habitual deflection [...]

We often hear people say, “If you need help, just reach out.” But how can we possibly ask for help when we feel we’re at our worst? Reaching out is a skill we are expected to know, but is often not modeled for us. When you’re in a negative mental space, you might have thoughts of loneliness, insignificance or shame. You may think you’re not feeling “low” enough to ask for help. You might even prepare yourself to ask for help, but then later talk yourself out of it for fear of being judged. You need to know that you are not alone. The truth is that there are many people who love you and want to [...]

The change in seasons can do more than alter the weather, it can also affect our mood. Starting in the fall and into the winter season, the days are shorter and usually less sunny. For some people, the change in season can be accompanied by a change in mood, known as seasonal depression or Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Seasonal Affective Disorder is a type of depression that typically begins in the fall and lasts through the winter months. As the season progresses, the symptoms of SAD may worsen. What Are the Symptoms of SAD? Feeling listless, sad, or down most of the day, nearly every [...]

Did you know that 1 in 6 youth from ages 6 to 17 experience mental health issues each year? Children often cannot voice their emotions like adults can, and that is why it is important that adults look out for warning signs of mental illness in kids. Early recognition of childhood mental health issues can prevent suicide, learning challenges, long-term mental health issues, and homelessness. Whether you are a parent, teacher, or mentor of a child, it’s important that you are able to identify possible symptoms of mental health struggles in children. What mental health issues can children face [...]