Our Services

Most people will seek a counselor, psychotherapist, or coach because they want to change something about their lives, transforming negative aspects and growing positive ones.

The FOCUS PEC team aims to help you overcome issues that are causing discomfort or pain. We provide a safe and regular space for you to talk about difficult and private topics to explore what they mean or how you can enhance your life. Our foundation and philosophy is to support you and respect your views. We may share relevant information about evidenced based research or the science of one’s nervous system, but we are not experts on your life and will never tell you what to do.

Through interactive, dynamic and collaborative conversations, we hope to create opportunities for personal insight, and maybe develop different perceptions of your problems. You may also explore and hone skills for alternative ways of coping with life’s challenges. The imprints of our personality and behaviors can be habit forming and repetitive. Sometimes, we grow tired of the “same old stuff” but their remains a gap between our intellectual knowing and our ability to do things differently. Your work with FOCUS PEC can lead to identifying and practicing new responses to old issues.

Individual Counseling

50min-1hr one on one sessions with a counselor, psychotherapist or coach. People often ask what the difference is between these three titles or styles of working? Sarah Breidenbach, director at FOCUS PEC, offers her understanding and discernment between them. Please note this is one person’s loose way of describing the differences and is by no means comprehensive or a formal definition.

Couples Counseling

1hr – 90min sessions together with your significant other and a counselor to focus on whatever relevant topics are meeting challenges such as communication, conflict resolution, sex life, decision making, differences in values, etc.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

ACT is a mindfulness based psychotherapy that could be summarized as the practice of accepting emotional and physical discomfort while moving towards values based actions in your life. Unlike other models that aim to reduce symptoms or control emotions, ACT promotes the idea that people, and their psychological experience, are not a thing that’s broken and needs fixing.

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)

This is a long and clumsy name for an effective therapeutic framework which allows people to process big and small trauma. Trauma can be defined as life events which feel like “too much too fast” or “too much too long” and remain negatively impactful in one’s present life. Trauma is not determined by the event itself, but by what happens inside a person’s mind and body during the event.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT is a well established therapeutic approach with some newer versions of it that incorporate compassion and mindfulness. The framework teaches people to notice their cognition (another word for thoughts) at particularly emotional or behaviorally difficult times.

Mindfulness Practice

Mindfulness hardly needs an explanation these days given the explosion of mediation apps and the regular use of this term in modern psychotherapy and counseling. It is a key ingredient to effective counseling and provides greater psychological flexibility. At its origin, mindfulness comes from Buddhist meditation practices that grow a heightened state of sensory awareness and the space to observe activity of the mind and body.

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

EFT uses a combination of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Traditional Chinese Medicine. It has been referred to as acupuncture without the needles. By tapping on acupressure points, the client activates energy channels while talking with the counselor about any particular area of mental or physical distress.

Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT)

PACT is a fusion of attachment theory, developmental neuroscience, and arousal regulation developed by Dr. Stan Tatkin. PACT has the reputation for treating some of the most challenging couples.