Welcoming in December: Alex Stanger, MA

We are very excited to welcome Alex Stanger! Alex enjoys working with adults, college and graduate students. She believes that a true and authentic relationship is at the core of a positive and helpful experience in therapy. She creates a non-judgmental, safe, warm, relaxed and inviting environment. Alex works from a sex-positive, anti-racist, and LGBTQIA+ affirming lens. She has experience working with clients who present with anxiety, trauma, depression, relationship concerns, self-esteem, identity, life transitions, body image, and other challenges.

 Alex believes that all people have a vast potential and capacity for self-understanding, self-directed growth, and self-healing. Each client has a unique experience that she strives to understand and foster positive, constructive, and conscious choices. Alex helps clients understand how past experiences have shaped and impacted their body, brain, and nervous system reactions. She assists clients develop awareness of learned behaviors that are no longer working for them. Alex incorporates a variety of approaches in her work, including ACT, mindfulness, person-centered, nervous system regulation, REBT, and others. Therapy with Alex is relaxed and includes celebrating the wins of life, humor, and a real human connection.

Alex graduated from Montana State University – Bozeman with a Bachelors degree in Psychology and Sociology. She went on to graduate from St. Thomas University with a Masters degree in Counseling Psychology. Alex is currently pursuing her LPCC. Outside of the office Alex enjoys spending time with her family, friends, her dog Red, her cat Blue, reading, crocheting, cooking, eating, and playing Nintendo.

JOINING US IN AUGUST: SONIA COBOS, MS

Sonia (she/her) is passionate about mental health and behavioral science and considers herself privileged to work in this field.  Sonia recently completed a Master’s degree in rehabilitation and addiction counseling. Her training was focused on addiction and mental health counseling, including the special needs of individuals living with disability, congenital or acquired.

Sonia takes a holistic and goal-oriented Adlerian approach. Informed by this perspective, Sonia believes that the person’s wholeness or holistic nature is irreducible, therefore considering parts of the personality while ignoring others undermines the understanding of the individual. Sonia likes to apply contextual psychology, family system theory, cognitive behavioral therapy, and motivational interviewing in her practice.

As an immigrant, Sonia is mindful of cultural influences as well as the trauma and generational trauma experienced by the immigrant and first and second generation Americans. She approaches multiculturalism as an enriching opportunity to expand our humanity and grow consciousness.

Sonia’s clinical training is patient centered and non-directive. Sonia’s research during graduate school was in neuroplasticity and the promotion of neurogenesis as part of the therapeutic approach for individuals with addictions and co-occurring mental illness.

Sonia enjoys working with individuals of all ages and backgrounds, and has special interest in helping those who experience addictions, domestic violence, developmental trauma, PTSD, grief and traumatic grief, and patients with long-term disability.

Joining us June 1: Taylor Anderson

Taylor (she/they) is a graduate student in the Clinical Counseling program at Crown College. She plans on continuing supervision after graduating to pursue licensure in clinical counseling (LPCC). Her special interests include working with adolescents, young adults, adoptees and their families, and individuals who identify with the LGBTQ2+ community. Personally and professionally, she is especially attuned to social justice issues, and understands that individual hardships are very much intertwined with historical and current sociopolitical issues. Naturally, she integrates this focus with a person-centered approach. She is looking forward to learn about her clients and help them gain insight into their unique life experience, enabling them to arrive at their own conclusions as the experts on their life experience.

Taylor operates from a compassionate and nonjudgmental approach. No matter a client’s reason for seeking therapy, her curiosity and strive to connect with others drives her psychotherapeutic practice. She hopes to work as a team with clients to help actualize in their own strength and build resilience in coping with life’s various challenges.

In her free time, Taylor enjoys cross country skiing, connecting with friends and her community, and trying new food.

Taylor is eager to begin her work as a therapist and work alongside and learn from her clients. 

Spotlight with Brian Borre: Metacognitive Therapy

Before we get into theory, or how this approach might apply to you, let’s take a detour into language. When used as a prefix in the English language, “meta-”, stemming from the Greek for “after” or “beyond”, means something that goes beyond, to be all-encompassing, or become transcendent. When “Meta” and “Cognitive” are put together, the result essentially means “thinking about thinking.” For example, have you ever had an experience where you’re certain you know the name of something--a person, product, or place--but you can’t recall it? This “tip of the tongue” experience is just one example of how metacognitions work to inform our everyday lives--we’re thinking about how we’re thinking. While most of our meta-processes aren’t so conscious, our metacognitions are in the background actively controlling and influencing our conscious experience of the world, 

Metacognitive Therapy (MCT) focuses on targeting and modifying our deeply held beliefs--the thinking about our thinking--that fosters states of perpetual worry, rumination, and/or fixation. For example, if you say to yourself, “worrying about this keeps me safe,” or “I have no control over my thoughts,” you are both observing your own thinkingand having thoughts about thinking. The goal of MCT is simple: identify, challenge, and reduce what they dub, “Cognitive-Attentional Syndrome” (CAS). CAS is an umbrella term that refers to the kinds of beliefs that imply: we need worry, are incapable of stopping worry, and would be better off if we hyperfocus on tackling each individual worry.  

You might be thinking to yourself, “Birch Counseling, this is starting to sound a lot like CBT,” (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). The truth is, you aren’t exactly wrong. In CBT, we are dealing with our thoughts. For example, if we were to use CBT to challenge our social anxiety, we might ask ourselves, “how likely will this outcome be, and will it be as bad as we’re thinking it will be?” Essentially, we identify an irrational thought and we challenge it with a more realistic lens. 

In comparison, with MCT, we are dealing with how we think about our thinking. We don’t give a lot of attention to the individual thoughts. Instead, we challenge the thinking around the thoughts themselves by asking ourselves, “should I spend my time worrying if the worry doesn’t make it less likely to happen? And if I already worried about it and made a decision, why am I re-worrying about this when I don’t have any new information?” This process, which encourages us to refuse to engage with unhelpful thinking, is called “Detached Mindfulness.” It works because it isn’t avoidance--it challenges people to view their worry and irrational beliefs as something that is outside of their core, observe the thoughts, stay non-reactive to them, and choose to respond without the preoccupation with worry about worried thinking. 

Why does Brian like it? Besides being a philosophical guy interested in all things “meta” (emotions, beliefs, and communication), Brian saw that CBT wasn’t always helpful with anxious, depressed, or addiction-driven thinking. From his perspective, it can be equally harmful to hyper-focus on our worry if we feel utterly incapable of controlling or changing it. He thinks about it like “giving in to a screaming toddler you know is just seeking attention because they want something from you, and you don’t know how to handle the upset anymore. Ultimately, it doesn’t help you, or them, to keep caving in or feeling totally helpless to stop it.” Instead, you can learn how to provide the tantruming child in your brain--the anxiety, depression, or addiction monster’s voice--the reassurance that you know what’s best, have a plan, can essentially “pivot” yourself out of the situation, or rebound if you make a mistake. It deflates the tantrum in your brain. And that’s a powerful tool. 

If you think Brian might be a fit for you, or have any additional questions about metacognitive therapy, please feel free to reach out to our team at BizOffice@birchcounseling.com. 

References:

1. https://mct-institute.co.uk/therapy/

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6246690/#:~:text=Conclusions%3A%20Our%20findings%20indicate%20that,psychotherapies%2C%20including%20cognitive%20behavioral%20interventions.

3. https://mental-health-matters.com/what-is-metacognitive-therapy-and-how-can-it-help-anxiety/

4. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00031/full

Going Out On A Limb With Brian Borre, MA, LMFT, LADC

In another life, Brian would have been any college student’s dream Philosophy or Creative Writing professor because he makes you think without feeling judged. He doesn’t pepper you with questions, or reflexively challenge your answers for the sake of being contrarian. And while you can tell that there is always something percolating just beneath the surface, it never feels like he’s holding something back from you, creating a power imbalance, or checked-out in the moment. He’s just effortlessly curious, compassionate, and clear about his boundaries: he won’t work harder than you do. 

 Perhaps part of what makes Brian a refreshing therapist to Minnesotans is that he’s not from here; being a Chicago native, he can observe the “Minnesota Nice” practices of passivity, but he’s not limited to them. He’s not afraid to sit in silence, push on a button, or meet clients where they are at--it all just depends on what the client’s needs are. While he identifies as more of a “generalist,” or someone who sees a variety of client populations, Brian likes to work with blended families, young professionals, and couples because of his own personal experiences. When it’s appropriate, Brian has found it can really help to have someone who has been through some of those experiences help validate your feelings, normalize what’s happening, and help figure out what comes next. 

 One thing you might find surprising about Brian: His first professional venture had nothing to do with therapy! While he always felt a calling towards private practice, and his undergraduate major focused on Psychology and Sociology, Brian took a several-year detour into the Culinary Arts! Brian worked in professional kitchens near Yosemite National Park and “really loved it.” What’s really surprising about this tidbit isn’t even the professional pivot, it’s the fact that he identifies as a “professional chef who now doesn’t cook.” He’s clear he’s diplomatic about shared household labor, but in terms of creative expression and self-care, he’d rather spend his time watching or reading Science Fiction, having adventures with his kids, or playing guitar. 

On coping with the pandemic: Brian admits that his coping with the pandemic has shifted as the world starts to open up again. Early on, his coping came from fitness, work, reading, and nature; things that would help him to ground or find some semblance of normalcy. Now that we’re able to explore more, he finds himself coping with the uncertainty by noticing the “absolute, purest joy” that his children are experiencing. Even if vicarious, the “wonder they have and excitement for everything they’re doing, it’s like watching them discover it all for the first time,” which helps him hold on to gratitude, wonder, and simplicity, even in the most uncertain or ambiguous of times. 

 Walk-Up Song: Brian’s ideal walk-up song, “would be something like a mash-up between The Sex Pistols and Beethoven,” which we think is pretty indicative of his style: a balance between classical approaches and total anarchy. Since that song doesn’t technically exist yet (and Brian’s musical skills are limited to the guitar), the closest thing he could think of was London Punkharmonic Orchestra’s cover of “Pretty Vacant” (originally by The Sex Pistols). While we were skeptical at first, we might be able to add this to our waiting room playlist…

Professional pet-peeve: Brian is “other professionals who stop learning or continue to learn in a singular way.” From Brian’s perspective, having an interest as a clinician in anything ranging from music to Mythology, Stoicism to sports, nature or technology, literally whatever you choose to learn about, can inform how we experience our lives and others. Brian believes that a narrow focus or general lack of curiosity can contribute to the greatest of professional offenses: shaming and invalidating clients.

Favorite tool in the Therapist Toolbox: By this point in the blog, you’re probably not going to be surprised that Brian is anti-assessment and scales. To be fair, he does believe in referring to psych testing, understands the value of tracking relevant data, and ongoing anecdotal assessments. He just doesn’t believe in universal measures of unique situations, or snapshots in time meant to reflect something grander. In his experience, some of the most standardized tools can bring about shame for clients because they “didn’t make progress fast enough, or felt like they had a better week but their depression assessment is high today,” and it can cause undue harm. Instead, Brian often uses an ecological approach to help clients reflect on what is going on in their life at any given moment, on a bunch of different levels. If you’ve never had one, it can sort of look like a target with each ring reflecting a different domain of our life. This way, “we’re checking the health of their system as it is today--not just focusing on all the bad at work or home, it’s bringing it back into a larger context and perspective so there’s more balance and insight.” 

 If you have any questions about Brian, his approach, or think he might be a fit for you, please reach out to us at bizoffice@birchcounseling.com or get in touch through the “Contact Us” tab on our website. Otherwise, stay tuned for our next blog post where we put the spotlight on how Brian’s “Meta” thinking translates into Metacognitive Therapy with clients!

Spotlight with Pam Hyatt: Self-of-the-Therapist

If you’ve ever been in a position where you are trying to get to know someone, such as a kid or someone shy, it’s not an unusual tactic to try to open up a little to them. The hope is, of course, that by making a disclosure about ourselves, that they will reciprocate in kind. Even though it’s used as a common intervention between teachers and students, spiritual leaders and practitioners, and in various professional settings, it’s often considered taboo for a therapist to disclose about themself during a client session. After all, no client comes to therapy to listen to their therapist talk about themself!

Self-of-the-Therapist isn’t used by therapists to update you about their life, confide in you about the drama in their relationship, or process their past. It’s when a highly skilled therapist is able to use the work they have done on themself, insight they have gained or skills they have learned along the way, and share it intentionally with a client to create a teachable moment, joining opportunity, or as a measure of sorts to assess a client’s morals, values, and idiosyncrasies. If done correctly, a shared understanding of the world starts to develop from the shared--and contrasting--experiences of the world. From there, a certain degree of comradery starts to develop between the client and the therapist, a feeling like, “okay, we’re really in this together... we get and want to talk about this thing that not everyone else does or can!”

The problem is: it’s considered taboo or unusual for a reason. For it to be an effective technique, the therapist doing it has to be well, having done (and continuing to do) the work on themself. They would also have to be able to be their most authentic and vulnerable self, present and dynamic, ethical and informative, all while tailoring the right disclosure, at the right moment, for the right person. Plus, they have to do it without having a formal class on it in graduate school! In short, it’s taboo because not all therapists do it well, and when done poorly, it can cause irreparable harm to the therapeutic relationship and/or the client.

Why does Pam like it? “It helps clients open up,” she says, and she believes it builds a trust that she “might be able to get it in a way that their past therapists, friends, or families don’t.” She uses her experiences as a mom, as a professional across different industries, experiences in different times or relationships, whatever might prove insightful, curious, or normalizing in the moment to the client. “It’s always about building that different understanding, that sort of magic moment when you both just get it, that can make this work so rewarding” to Pam.

It also helps that Pam is good at it. Whether in client sessions or consultation with other therapists, Pam is a wealth of knowledge and insight, warmth and grounding, as well as compassion and empathy, which translate whether you're in the office with her or having a virtual meeting. Her skill comes from her experiences doing her own work, and having had a therapist who “could talk about himself for a half hour without even noticing.” She wants to ensure clients never have to experience that, and welcomes the feedback if you find her “a little chatty sometimes.”

If you think Pam or another Self-of-the-Therapist provider at our practice might be a fit for you, or have any additional questions about this approach, please feel free to reach out to our team at BizOffice@birchcounseling.com. We look forward to introducing you to another team member in June!

References:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/160940691201100504

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/experimentations/202001/how-thera pists-use-the-self-during-therapy https://www.wyomingcounselingassociation.com/wp-content/uploads/Lum-200 2-Self-Of-Therapist-Satir.pdf

Going Out On A Limb With: Pam Hyatt, MSW, LICSW

To try and capture Pam is analogous to trying to capture all the elements of nature at once: she’s grounded like the earth, occasionally enjoys playing with fire (when it’s appropriate and relatively safe), understands the inherent duality of water’s gentle and abrasive force, and is always running a little late, which is why she can run like the wind! These elements, and being able to hold space for the different parts of people, contribute to her being an excellent clinician. Her dynamic nature allows her to access different parts of herself and her experiences to relate, inform, and improve a client’s experience of their situation.

She’s able to provide various elements to her clients because she knows what it is to have to go through the darkness and find the light again (and again...). At fifty, around the same time she went to graduate school for counseling, she decided she wanted to become the kind of wise woman she had always wanted to have in her own life. Today, she still aspires to provide others with genuine acceptance, understanding, and unconditional support with a hearty dose of “tough love if needed” that so few people get to have in their life. Whether she’s giving away hugs at the Pride Festival, with her family, or working with clients, she feels “grateful” for the opportunity to “sit in all the ick” with people who “genuinely want better for themselves and just don’t have the right support to get there.”

One thing you might find surprising about Pam: How many single mothers go to graduate school AND run for state leadership? That’s just who Pam is. She has a passion for Organizational Leadership, and armed with a Master’s Degree in the subject from St. Kate’s, she decided she wanted to be the change she wanted to see in the world. While she didn’t win that particular election, she continues to be an advocate for the queer, marginalized, and oppressed populations in the Twin Cities area.

On coping with the pandemic: Pam has always loved the arts and believes she was “blessed with the curse of being artistic.” She started with dance throughout her youth before finding theater in High School and college, which eventually evolved into a seven-year stint in the Chicago Improv scene. In the pandemic, finding a space for art and expression has become even more important to Pam. While she admits her primary coping has relied heavily upon time with her husband, quality calls with her granddaughters, and cooking, she attributes her current sanity to singing anything from showtunes to pop songs, streaming plays and movies, writing, and doing things that help her stay connected to the creative world.

Walk-Up Song: Based on the last paragraph, it might come as no surprise that Pam’s anthem is borrowed from Broadway. Written by Dolly Parton and performed with the ensemble cast of 9 to 5 (including all-stars like Allison Janney and Megan Hilty), “Change It” has a quirky melody and a simple call to action: “Somethin’ gotcha down? Gotcha chained and bound? Well, break it.” It might be an overly simplistic analogy for Pam’s work as a therapist, but there is something about the song that perfectly captures what sets Pam apart from so many other clinicians: she…

…isn’t going to sit back and endlessly validate you. Having been through so much in her life, she knows there’s no getting unstuck without personal agency being involved in the process.

Professional pet-peeve: One of the best things about Pam is that she’s not an unclear person. She’s direct, assertive, curious, and communicative in the therapeutic process, and in her life. While she does believe in unconditional positive regard for her clients, her pet-peeve comes from the mispractice of that same orientation. Pam believes that unconditional validation and support can accidentally enable client’s stuckness, impair client growth, and prevent clients from learning how to get more comfortable with the discomfort they are experiencing. From Pam’s perspective, unconditional positive regard means you know clients are capable of more and therapists are willing to “push people, even if it’s just a little bit past where they think they’ll be comfortable.”

Favorite tool in the Therapist Toolbox: Pam has a very diverse caseload. From queer children to conservative, older couples, Pam tailors her toolbox to meet each client where they are at because the tools that work in one space don’t always translate. However, Pam has found one tool that transcends demographics entirely: Self-of-the-Therapist. This tool is when a unique therapist shares more of their personality, experience, world view, and belief systems with clients in order to create a genuine sense of connection, intersubjectivity, and attachment with a unique client. While that might sound like Pam just talks about herself a lot, what it actually means is that she uses her deep well of human experience to inform and relate to others in order to normalize absurd, upsetting, or uncomfortable experiences clients may be experiencing.

If you have any questions about Pam, her approach, or think she might be a fit for you, please reach out to us at bizoffice@birchcounseling.com. Otherwise, stay tuned for our next blog post where we put the spotlight on Self-of-the-Therapist, and how Pam incorporates it into her approach.

Going Out On A Limb With: Mark Bartley, MA, LPC

Mark is a “Meat and Potatoes” kind of guy, both literally and metaphorically. In the literal sense, he’s definitely the kind of guy who enjoys a solid protein and an Idaho spud, and he’d probably do so wearing his flannel shirt after a day of ice fishing. He was, after all, born and raised in Blue Earth, so hunting, wood-working, and carpentry are part of the bloodline.

Sitting down with Mark evokes the kind of built-in comfort which is hard to quantify. It may be a bit like sitting down to a hearty beef stew on a cold winter night, or having a burger with fries in the summer with friends. Those kinds of foods and experiences, no matter where you go or how it’s prepared, feel familiar and tender, down-home and straight forward. Sitting with Mark helps you relax, be present, slow down, and appreciate the simple things in life. It just feels natural doing the work with him, and it very rarely feels like work. 

One thing you might find surprising about Mark: He actually enjoys Telehealth! Don’t get him wrong, he’s also excited to be back in the office again with real live people. When working Telehealth, he appreciates how a client can spontaneously grab a picture, book, or instrument that helps them explain their feelings or experience. As therapists, we don’t usually get that kind of spontaneity or context in our office.

On coping with the pandemic: Mark’s done his own work enough to realize that for him to cope effectively with any situation, he needs two things: variety and access to “doing stuff.” He identifies as a kinesthetic processor, or someone who does better with movement when processing. Things like woodworking, being out in nature, or throwing a ball back and forth, helps him digest what he needs about the world. True to form, there isn’t “one way” that works best for him all the time. That’s why he enjoys a variety of clients, activities, and approaches to life because it keeps him more engaged and motivated. 

 Walk-Up Song: If you’ve never heard Bishop Gunn’s, “Shine,” it’s a unique combination of Blues, Country, and Rock and Roll that sets the perfect backdrop for a care-free summer scene, like driving with the top down or being out at the beach with friends. While the vibe is relaxed, If you reflect on the lyrics, you’ll hear a clear call-to-action to: find peace of mind, ground yourself, and repair emotional wounds. In other words, the song’s deceivingly simple sound allows for it’s otherwise hyper-conscious lyrics to float out there for us to think about and fully appreciate at our own speeds. For that reason, we think it’s a perfect encapsulation of Mark’s style!

 Professional pet-peeve: Mark’s answer is succinct: “Therapists who don’t normalize feedback to their clients.” Mark doesn’t view feedback as a bad thing. Instead, he thinks feedback can make therapy, and most relationships, more productive because it creates an open dialogue on how it’s going and what can work better. By helping clients get more comfortable with feedback, he hopes clients will feel more comfortable advocating for themselves. 

 Favorite tool in the Therapist Toolbox: He’s about solutions, not particular skill sets. That’s why he borrows from modalities like Solution-Focused and Narrative approaches to therapy. But if there was one tool he had to identify with, he picked Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). When asked why, he said because “it’s the one most focused on going from unhelpful to helpful thinking,” and thinks he gets “a ton of energy” from collaborating with clients on finding and applying the right re-frame for them. 

If you think Mark might be a fit for you, or have any additional questions about his approach, please reach out to our team at bizoffice@birchcounseling.com.

Welcoming in May: Brian Rose, MA, LADC

Brian worked as a professional bicycle mechanic for 29 years. This allowed him to travel around the country and connect with people from all over. He enjoys spending time on the bike, meeting people and trying to learn to fly a drone. 

After working in the bicycle industry for so long he found himself working for a non-profit that focused on underserved communities. He  envisioned doing more for people and decided to change careers. His own journey with mental health and recovery lead him down the path to becoming a counselor. He earned his master’s degree in Addiction counseling and advanced practice from Hazelden Betty Ford Graduate School. He received a Bachelor’s in Psychology with a religious studies minor (focused on Islam) from Hamline University. 

Brian believes that his clients are the experts in their own lives. He brings an existential approach to therapy that focuses on meaning, purpose and personal identity. Brian feels his role in the therapeutic relationship is to create an environment where a sense of safety and acceptance allow for openness and collaboration.  Brian enjoys working with clients on topics around culture, identity and helping find where they meet.