Behavioral Health Services

A Wiser Mind delivers a range of therapeutic, rehabilitative and assessment services. Our goal is to improve the quality of life for the clients and families we serve through personal one-on-one interaction with our licensed therapists.

Our clinical services are arranged into three groups—Therapeutic, Rehabilitative and Assessment services.

Where and when possible, we offer three types of visits with our sessions. Teletherapy, Office and Residential (delivered in the residence of our client). Dependent on insurance and type of diagnosis, our therapist will work with you to determine which type of visit is right for your needs and the restrictions your insurance provider may establish for visit location. Within our clinical practice, we have created and employ a broad and unique set of treatments to help respond to many of the most life-altering and incapacitating disorders and diseases to affect our minds and emotions.

Therapeutic Services – Emotional Wellness

There are several different types of psychosocial—behavioral—therapy. Following is a list of some of the more common types of therapies. Your AWM therapist will work with you to pick the best approach for your unique needs.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT is based on the Cognitive Model of Emotional Response, which holds that our thoughts cause our feelings and behaviors. The benefits of this approach are that we can change the way we think and ultimately feel better even if the external influences do not change. Simply put, CBT helps people change their negative styles of thinking and behaving.

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) concentrates on finding solutions in the present time and explores your motivation and hope for the future to find quicker resolutions to your problems. This method takes the approach that you know what you need to do to improve your own life and—with the appropriate discussions, encouragement, and questioning—helps you find your best solution. You may be familiar with Mindfulness, a technique of SFBT which has grown in popularity and reached into our common vocabulary.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Like its acronym implies, Acceptance and Commitment therapy (ACT) is an action-oriented approach to therapy. Stemming from traditional behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, ACT helps you to stop avoiding, denying, and struggling with inner emotions and learn to accept your feelings as appropriate responses to certain situations. Through this new understanding, you can begin to accept your challenges and commit to making the essential changes in behavior and perspective regardless of distractions or emotions.

Person-Centered Therapy

Person-Centered Therapy (PCT) helps a person achieve personal growth and/or come to terms with a specific event or problem they are having. PCT is based on the principle of talk-therapy with a non-directive approach, creating a supportive, non-judgmental environment. The therapist’s role is mainly to act as a facilitator and to provide a comfortable environment without driving or directing therapeutic outcomes.

Interpersonal Therapy

Interpersonal Therapy focuses on the behaviors and interactions a depressed client has with family and friends. The primary goal of this approach is to improve communication skills and increase self-esteem during a short period of time usually lasting three to four months. This approach traditionally produces good results for depression caused by mourning, relationship conflicts, major life events, and social isolation.

Rehabilitative Services

Brain Activation Therapy

Brain Activation Therapy (BAT) is our trendsetting, one-on-one program to promote higher levels of mental activity in clients living with impacts of dementia, stroke or mild brain injury.

Our Brain Activation Therapy has improved cognition, strengthened confidence, and enhanced quality of life in many of clients living with broad range of dementias, stroke effects and mild-to-moderate brain injury. During treatment, the clinician works with the client to target a range of mental-processing elements such as: logic; reasoning; short-term, working, and long-term memories; spatial awareness and orientation; visual acuity; perspective orientation; verbal, language, writing, math, and social skills.

Brain Activation Therapy provides for the specific needs and goals of the individual based on their personal traits, current cognitive state and life history. BAT employs multiple types of interaction to better match the client’s unique interests and mental strengths.

A broad range of mental functions and capacities are targeted by the therapy including:
• long-term memory,
• short-term memory,
• working memory,
• behavioral responses,
• logic,
• deductive reasoning,
• inductive reasoning,
• language,
• vocabulary,
• mathematics,
• spatial awareness and
• focus and stimulus filtering skills.

In addition, essential life elements such as social skills, confidence, and independence
are emphasized during sessions with the goal of maximizing quality of life, strengthening family connections, along with minimizing anxiety and depression.

Unfortunately, dementia doesn’t occur by itself. It is often accompanied by one or more other mental-health conditions including depression, anxiety, adjustment disorder, panic disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as others. Our psychosocial therapies can be delivered in tandem with Brain Activation and Speech therapies to help clients dealing with both cognitive and emotional issues, or they can be delivered separately to improve the quality of life for clients coping only with emotional challenges.

In Colorado, BAT is covered by many insurance plans, including Medicare. At this time, however, Arizona insurance providers have put restrictions on the types and severity of dementia which can be treated as a benefit of those insurance plans. For those living in Arizona, please call for details related to your plan’s coverage and our private-pay rates.