Individual & Family Counseling
Counseling Overview
Emotional distress is not only painful. It interferes with our ability to positively interact with our spouses, children and employers. It hinders our ability to make constructive decisions. Counseling can relieve the pain, improve relationships and enhance the ability to interact with the world around us.
Counseling is a partnership for individual, marital and family growth. Individuals, couples and families are matched to a therapist experienced in treating their unique problems. Our professional counselors are trained and skilled in evidence-proven techniques. Customized services range from traditional one-to-one talk therapy to neural diagnostics and brain-function enhancement. Counselors assist in defining the focus and extent of distressing issues. We are skilled listeners who allow our clients to be fully heard. We help to clarify thoughts and attitudes that contribute to dysfunction. We are active consultants who encourage insight and support growth. We also teach skills that contribute to happy, healthy, productive lives.
All counseling services are provided within the privacy of the counselor’s office. All client-related information is safeguarded according to the highest accepted standards of confidentiality. In short, Choices services reflect our respect for client strength, dignity and privacy.
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We thank all veterans and their families for their sacrifice and service.
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Contact us in Farmington, New Mexico, to make an appointment for family, individual or marriage counseling services.
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Individual Counseling
Realistic, positive and self-enhancing thoughts are primary contributors to healthy choices and a quality life. Individualized therapy concentrates on thoughts and attitudes that influence these choices. Multiple influences such as chemical imbalance, previous abuse, dysfunctional lifestyles or unrealistic expectations can undermine the ability to make rational choices. Without an accurate perception of ourselves and the world around us, self-enhancing thoughts are undermined by frustration and failure.
Choices Counseling Services counselors employ clinically validated solution-focused therapies that target the unique problems of each individual. Therapy focuses on dysfunctional thoughts, attitudes and choices without becoming wrapped up in the mire of causative factors. We improve decision making by helping each individual form a more realistic view of him/her and their environment. We encourage constructive beliefs and expectations by challenging habitual thought patterns. We prefer building on strengths to foster positive decision making and healthy lifestyles. We support appropriate medical treatment to correct chemical imbalances that cause mental illness. However, we also strongly believe that counseling augments that care or reduces the need for medication by encouraging self-enhancing thoughts and problem solving.
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Family Counseling
The family is the single most vital institution for developing healthy children and sustaining productive adults. And it is the least supported. Healthy, secure and positive families foster disciplined, self-reliant and productive children. In most instances, the family is the best institution to correct child and adolescent attitudes and behaviors. We support parents in their commitment to their children’s safety, welfare and preparation for adulthood. We help them to understand appropriate expectations of each age and maturation level. We encourage appropriate and consistent discipline, open child-parent communication and loving instruction. We advocate for children as they learn personal accountability, find ways to communicate constructively and gain privileges commensurate with their maturation and level of responsibility.
We assist blending families to integrate differing child rearing practices. This includes recognizing the stressors experienced by children as well as parents. We attempt to facilitate communication and cooperation among all the adults responsible for each child’s welfare. We also support single parent families to make appropriate transitions and help children of divorce to experience the best of both parents.
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Marriage Counseling
Choices Counseling Services believes that supportive, loving relationships are key to our sense of well-being. We are steadfast in our belief that we all have the same basic needs for acceptance, connection and comfort from others. Problems in our lives often present when either of these are threatened or unfulfilled. Difficulties develop and are maintained in the context of the system in which couples live and try to meet their physical and emotional needs. Often, the couple's best attempts at trying to get their needs met become the very habits that keeps them stuck.
Choices Counseling Services carefully avoids assigning blame to either partner. We believe that attitudes and assumptions always make sense to the partner who has them. We further believe each of their needs is important and legitimate. We believe that solutions to difficulties lie in the way each partner relates to him/her own self and to others. By encouraging self-exploration, we strive to aid each partner to identify personal beliefs and attitudes that interfere with a healthy relationship. By improving communication, we help to build bridges to understanding the other partner's thoughts, needs and desires. By improving problem-solving skills, we enhance both partners' abilities to parent as well as manage their familial and personal lives as a united couple. We strive to help each partner to reach the level of happiness and productivity they jointly and individually deserve.
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Children’s Counseling
Choices Counseling Services believes that it is the responsibility of every family, every educational institution and our society as a whole to see that our children grow to become happy, healthy, productive adults. All too often, however, children’s life experiences interfere with this process. Abuse, neglect, bullying, and social isolation can undermine the best efforts of caring adults. Choices Counseling Services provides supportive but focused therapy to assist children to overcome painful experiences and attitudes that may result.
For children age 6 years to adulthood, we strive to partner with parents to help children positively experience their childhood. We believe that children flourish in a nurturing atmosphere that encourages responsibility. For children with a neurological or chemical imbalance, we assist each child to adapt to their uniqueness and consult with parents to help them understand and cope with their child.
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