The Providence Mental Health Approach

Trauma-Informed Care • Family Systems Approach • Strengths-based Trauma-informed Care

Providence Mental Health Counseling

We apply a unique clinical approach known as the Treatment Team Model. Each client, whether individual, as a couple, or within a family system receives their own clinician within a treatment team. These team members collaborate to assist family members while maintaining individual confidentiality and assisting the family to dissolve barriers and improve relationships. We also combine strengths-based, trauma-informed, and family systems treatment models to help patients identify and overcome past trauma so they can lead healthier, happier lives. Learn more about our strength based approach to mental health below.

Strengths-Based Approach

We apply a strengths-based approach to counseling. Strengths-Based Approach and practice is a social work practice theory that emphasizes people’s self-determination and strengths. It is a philosophy and a way of viewing clients as resourceful and resilient in the face of adversity.
Find out more about strength-based therapy. 

Trauma-Informed Care

Trauma-informed care requires knowledge and skills needed to promote healing, recovery, and wellness. A Trauma-Informed Approach is a promising model for organizational change in health, behavioral, and other settings that promotes resilience in staff and patients. This approach recognizes the role trauma plays in the lives of patients and seeks to shift the clinical perspective from “what’s wrong with you” to “what happened to you” by recognizing and accepting symptoms and difficult behaviors as strategies developed to cope with childhood trauma.
Learn more about Trauma-Informed Care.

Internal Family Systems

Internal Family Systems theory (IFS, Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.) is an approach to psychotherapy that identifies and addresses multiple sub-personalities or families within each person’s mental system. These sub-personalities consist of wounded parts and painful emotions such as anger and shame, and parts that try to control and protect the person from the pain of the wounded parts. The sub-personalities are often in conflict with each other and with one’s core Self, a concept that describes the confident, compassionate, whole person that is at the core of every individual. IFS is a focus on healing the wounded parts and restoring mental balance and harmony by changing the dynamics that create discord among the sub-personalities and the Self. Find out more about internal family systems.

Adverse Childhood Experiences

The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACEs) by Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), illuminates a strong link among trauma and health, mental health, substance use, and other social and behavioral difficulties, including suicidal ideations and behaviors and intimate partner violence (IPV). This study found that survivors of childhood trauma are up to 5,000 percent more likely to attempt suicide, have eating disorders, or become serious drug users. The ACE study also demonstrates that nearly every school has students who have been exposed to overwhelming traumatic experiences.
Find out more about the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study.

Family Systems Model

The Family Systems Model is based on a theory by Dr. Murray Bowen that suggests that individuals cannot be understood in isolation from one another, but rather as a part of their family, as the family is an emotional unit. When one member of the family either is struggling or improving, the emotional equilibrium within the whole family is affected. Find out more about the family systems model.