Sara Stanizai
What is Trauma-Informed Therapy?

The phrase “trauma-informed” is being thrown around all over the internet, but what does it actually mean?

Being trauma-informed goes beyond simply acknowledging the existence of trauma and its effects on mental health. Trauma-informed therapy is an actual approach to care that revolves around specific core principles. What a skilled therapist does with those principles, and how they implement them in the therapy room, will vary.

How we generate trust, safety, choice, collaboration and empowerment for our clients depends on what you have experienced in the past and what you might need now. (It’s those. Those are the principles.) This involves a deliberate and thoughtful approach to therapy that influences every choice we make as a therapist, both in session and when setting up our practice.

If you’re seeking therapy or if you’re a therapist yourself, it’s crucial to understand this concept so that you know how therapy works — and if it’s working for you.

What is Trauma-Informed Therapy?
Nik Stancil
"Therapy never worked for me": CBT isn't enough ...

Most of my clients have been to therapy before. Many have tried therapy several times over their life, but they never felt it was that helpful or they found it difficult to find a therapist who was a good fit. There are plenty of reasons why this might be the case, and this post aims to explore one of the main offenders: a very common type of therapy practiced is CBT, and using CBT alone may not be a great choice for neurodivergent brains. 

"Therapy never worked for me": CBT isn't enough for neurodivergent clients seeking long-term healing
trauma
Nik Stancil
Therapy Tools for Processing Childhood Trauma

No matter how hard parents work to offer the “perfect” childhood, traumatic events are all-too-skilled at finding their way into our life experience, like speed bumps in our path. And maybe they aren’t just bumps… maybe they feel like giant, icy mountains that we will never be able to scale or summit.

Trauma from our childhood can linger and have damaging effects on our adult lives, whether that effect is great or small. Addressing and healing from that trauma is often an essential step towards living a full, functional life as an adult.

Therapy Tools for Processing Childhood Trauma
Sara Stanizai
Benefits of Choosing a Neurodivergent Therapist

When it comes to your mental health, the importance of finding the right therapist cannot be overstated. Finding someone who gets your life and empathizes with your goals can be tricky if your life doesn’t look mainstream, which is the case for most of our neurodivergent clients. Plus, you deserve excellent clinical care! A shortcut to finding a therapist that is a great fit is looking for neurodivergent affirming therapists, who are often therapists who are neurodivergent themselves. Neurodivergent therapists bring a unique perspective to the therapeutic relationship, offering a myriad of benefits for both neurodivergent and neurotypical clients.

Benefits of Choosing a Neurodivergent Therapist
Sara Stanizai
Embracing Self-Discovery in Neurodiversity

Getting to know yourself and learning how your brain works can be a tricky journey, especially when it comes to neurodivergent experiences like ADHD. There is so much information online, but it’s hard to tell what’s a trustworthy source, and some sources seem to directly contradict others, making it quickly overwhelming. If you find yourself wondering, "How do I know if I have ADHD? Do I need to see a professional or can I diagnose myself?" this post is for you, written from a neurodiversity-affirming perspective.

Embracing Self-Discovery in Neurodiversity

relationships

Relational Trauma and its Lasting Impact

Relational Trauma and its Lasting Impact

Hear me out.

Let’s say you have a broken blender at home. Every time you try to make a smoothie, it tips off the counter and splashes your fruit purée all over the kitchen floor. Sometimes you can salvage some of the smoothie, but most of the time, it just leaves you hungry, flinching, and trying to block out the loud whirring, while covered in a mess of mangled fruit and yogurt. You end up feeling like you’ll never get that refreshing sip you came for!

Abusive relationships are similar in that they leave us with reflexive jumpiness, feelings of mistrust, emptiness, and hopelessness. Although instead of fearing fruit purée, we end up fearing people. Sometimes people we love deeply.

But your relationships don’t have to feel like a broken blender. Finding those healthy relationships may not always be as easy as driving to the store and picking up a new appliance, but there are steps you can take and principles you can follow to avoid the traumatic mess of unhealthy relationships. Here are some pointers to help you identify and avoid toxic relationships and the damage they leave behind.

Setting Boundaries vs. Giving an Ultimatum

Setting Boundaries vs. Giving an Ultimatum

Any person invested in their own growth will eventually question - how do I know when I’m asking for too much? Am I being fair? Am I going overboard with my boundaries now that I finally learned how helpful they can be?

If you’re uncomfortable speaking up for yourself, most of your personal work (with or without therapy) has probably been learning how to set boundaries.

When it comes to setting and carrying out boundaries, we want to push ourselves to grow and improve, but we also want to be accountable. This can feel like a circus act sometimes. So where’s the balance between asking and demanding?

What Does Your Therapist Really Think About You?

What Does Your Therapist Really Think About You?

When something big happens, whether it’s amazing or absolutely horrible, you typically want to text or call the people you love the most. But often, if you’re seeing a therapist regularly, they may be on that short list of who you want to talk to.

So how do you categorize them? As a friend, a loved one, a paid professional? And even weirder to think about… What do they think about you? This can seem confusing, but it probably just means you’re in relational therapy.

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I Still Want to Like You After This: Relationships in Quarantine

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I Still Want to Like You After This: Relationships in Quarantine

The first week or two was OK. It was fun staying in sweatpants. You enjoyed some comfort food. Made a group project out of being sure you had supplies for the time being.

Now you’re getting on each others' nerves a little bit. The cabin fever is setting in, and you're learning more than you thought possible about your partner.

These are stressful times, to be sure. A quarantine of undetermined length can certainly wear on even the strongest relationships. There’s a sentence I didn’t predict I would write. But here we are.

Here are some suggestions for how to maintain a calm and comforting environment with your partner. Bonus: These tips will remain helpful for when we emerge from this pandemic more grateful and appreciative of all our connections. xoxo

A Guide to Introducing Your Significant Other to Your Family

A Guide to Introducing Your Significant Other to Your Family

The holidays can be a great way to bring you and your partner closer by introducing them to your family. It can also be a really stressful time for a million other reasons, so we made this guide to help you make short work of the process.

The easiest way to make the process less stressful – prepare ahead of time.

*Thanks to HERS for the infographic!

Adulting 101: Mental Health Needs for Young Adults

Adulting 101: Mental Health Needs for Young Adults

For some people, relationships have always been easy but they have never had a job or subject in school they enjoyed. For others, they’ve always known what they would do for work, but socially they feel like the perpetual outsider. And some people don’t feel like anything comes easy—what a stressful place to start in! 

If you’re a young adult and you feel like you’re struggling, you are most definitely not alone.

Check Your Relationship Health: 4 Indicators for Success

Check Your Relationship Health: 4 Indicators for Success

No relationship is perfect, as no single person is perfect.. But how can you tell if you’re making things better - or making things worse?

Whether your relationship is a few months old or a few decades old, there is never a wrong time to consider your relationship’s health.

No matter what specifically you’re disagreeing about, these are signs that point to strength or weak spots in your relationship.

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Why Happy Couples Go To Therapy

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Why Happy Couples Go To Therapy

When you think about the type of couples that go to therapy, you’re likely conjuring up an image of partners trying to work through adultery, or those who have even more serious problems. But that’s not always the case.

While it is true that you definitely should go to a therapist if you are having trouble with your partner, the real answer to “should my partner and I go to couple’s therapy?” is always yes. Read on to find out how therapy can benefit even the happiest couples.

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When to Check on Your Strongest Friend

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When to Check on Your Strongest Friend

We need to feel discomfort first, for it to go away. This doesn’t mean you have to dwell on it for days or weeks. In fact, you’ll be surprised at how even a 20-minute conversation with someone who is listening can ease your pain. Here are some questions you can ask.

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How to Identify Your Own Toxic Behavior

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How to Identify Your Own Toxic Behavior

Aren't we as adults accountable for our own actions? But then, isn't everyone else responsible for theirs?

I recently spoke with Annamarie Higley at Brit + Co about how to identify our own toxic behavior. I think of this as our secret weapon when we're ready to try therapy.

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The Nice Person's Guide to Setting Boundaries

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The Nice Person's Guide to Setting Boundaries

Yeah, ok. You keep hearing about "the importance of setting boundaries" and you kind of have an idea of what people mean by that. (It's just saying "no" a lot more frequently....right?)  

How do you set limits without hurting people's feelings? Especially when you don't even intend to be hurtful, but people take it the wrong way? Sometimes it feels easier to just give in and hope the other person notices that they're asking too much.

Convenient to Long Beach and Seal Beach at:

4510 E Pacific Coast Hwy, #540, Long Beach, CA 90804

contact@prospecttherapy.com | (562) 704-4736