The Psychology Lab
There is no single approach to mental health that works for everyone. Every person brings a different story, set of experiences, challenges, strengths, and goals into therapy.
At The Psychology Lab, we believe treatment should reflect those differences. Our clinicians use a variety of therapeutic modalities to create an approach that is personalized to the individual—not a one-size-fits-all formula.
Some people benefit from a structured, practical approach focused on changing current thoughts and behaviors. Others may need to explore how past experiences continue to affect their emotions, relationships, nervous system, or sense of safety. Some clients find that experiential approaches, including working with horses or incorporating body-based techniques, help them access insight in ways traditional talk therapy alone cannot.
Our clinicians may use one therapeutic modality or thoughtfully integrate several approaches throughout treatment. Therapy can evolve as your needs change. The techniques that help you build stability and coping skills at the beginning of your journey may be different from the approaches that help you process deeper experiences later on.
The Psychology Lab offers a range of modalities for individuals, couples, families, and those seeking support for addiction, trauma, anxiety, depression, relationship challenges, emotional dysregulation, and other concerns. Our goal is to help you better understand yourself, develop effective tools, and create meaningful change that carries into everyday life.
Explore the therapeutic approaches available at The Psychology Lab and discover how the right combination of support, insight, and evidence-informed care can help you move forward.
Therapy Modalities
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, commonly known as CBT, is a practical and widely used form of psychotherapy that focuses on the relationship between thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. The way we interpret situations can influence how we feel, and how we feel can influence the choices we make. Over time, unhelpful patterns of thinking and behavior can reinforce one another and make difficult experiences feel even harder to manage.
CBT helps clients identify patterns that may be contributing to emotional distress. These patterns might include expecting the worst, being excessively self-critical, assuming you know what others are thinking, or believing that one difficult experience means things will never improve. The goal is not simply to “think positively.” Instead, therapy helps you examine thoughts more accurately and develop a more balanced, realistic perspective.
The behavioral side of CBT is equally important. People often develop coping patterns that provide temporary relief but can unintentionally maintain a problem over time. Avoiding a feared situation, withdrawing from others, or repeatedly seeking reassurance may feel helpful in the moment while making anxiety or distress more difficult to overcome in the long run. CBT can help clients recognize these patterns and practice healthier responses.
Sessions are collaborative and goal-oriented. Your therapist works with you to better understand the challenges you are experiencing, identify what may be maintaining those difficulties, and develop strategies that fit your life.
Depending on your needs, this may involve learning problem-solving skills, practicing new ways of responding to stressful situations, improving emotional awareness, or gradually building confidence in areas that feel difficult.
CBT often emphasizes applying what you learn outside the therapy office. This may include practicing specific skills, observing patterns in your daily life, or trying new behaviors between sessions. The purpose is to help you become more confident in your ability to recognize challenges and use effective tools independently.
At The Psychology Lab, CBT may be used as a primary approach or integrated with other modalities based on your individual needs. It can provide a strong foundation for understanding current difficulties and developing practical strategies for moving forward. The Psychology Lab specifically identifies CBT as one of the modalities offered as part of its individualized treatment approach.
Some experiences are easy to describe but difficult to fully process. You may understand intellectually why you feel a certain way while still finding yourself emotionally or physically reacting as though the experience is happening in the present. Brainspotting is an approach designed to help clients access and process experiences that may be held at deeper emotional and bodily levels.
Brainspotting is based on the idea that where we look can affect how we feel. During a session, the therapist may help you identify a particular eye position, sometimes called a “brainspot,” that appears connected to a specific emotional or physical experience. Maintaining focused attention on that position can create an opportunity to notice, explore, and process what emerges.
Unlike approaches that depend entirely on talking through an experience, Brainspotting can allow the therapeutic process to unfold with less emphasis on finding the perfect words. Your therapist remains present and attentive while helping you stay connected to your internal experience. This can be especially meaningful for people who feel that certain experiences are difficult to explain or who have found that insight alone has not fully resolved their distress.
Brainspotting may be used to address a wide range of emotionally and bodily based concerns. It can also be used to help clients identify and strengthen internal resources, resilience, and a greater sense of connection to themselves.
The process is individualized, allowing the therapist to follow what is most relevant to the client's experience rather than forcing every session into the same structure.
For some people, Brainspotting becomes part of a broader treatment plan that includes other approaches such as trauma-informed therapy, CBT, Polyvagal-informed work, or other therapeutic interventions. The flexibility of the modality allows it to be integrated with other forms of care when clinically appropriate.
At The Psychology Lab, Brainspotting is one of the approaches incorporated by clinicians as part of their individualized, trauma-informed work. If you are looking for an approach that explores the connection between your emotional experience, your body, and deeper patterns of distress, Brainspotting may be worth exploring with your therapist.
Relationships can be one of the greatest sources of comfort and connection in our lives, but they can also become a source of frustration, loneliness, and pain when communication breaks down. Couples therapy provides a structured, supportive environment where both partners can better understand what is happening in the relationship and learn new ways to navigate challenges together.
The Gottman Approach to couples therapy is informed by decades of research on relationships and incorporates interventions based on the Sound Relationship House Theory. The process begins with gaining a clearer understanding of the relationship as a whole, including its strengths, recurring challenges, communication patterns, and areas where each partner may feel unheard, disconnected, or hurt.
Many couples find themselves having the same argument repeatedly without reaching a resolution. One partner may pursue while the other withdraws. Conversations may quickly become defensive, critical, or emotionally overwhelming. Over time, unresolved conflict can create distance and make even ordinary interactions feel tense. Therapy helps couples identify these patterns and understand the dynamics beneath them.
The goal is not to determine who is right or to turn the therapist into a referee. Couples therapy is designed to help both people develop a stronger understanding of one another and create healthier patterns of interaction. Depending on the couple's needs, treatment may focus on improving communication, managing conflict, rebuilding trust, increasing emotional intimacy, and strengthening respect and affection.
The Gottman Approach also recognizes the importance of friendship, shared meaning, and everyday connection within a relationship. Healthy relationships are not defined by the absence of conflict. Instead, they are strengthened by the ability to communicate, repair after difficult moments, understand one another's needs, and continue building a meaningful life together.
Whether you are dating, engaged, married, or navigating a significant relationship transition, couples therapy can provide practical tools and deeper insight. At The Psychology Lab, the Gottman Approach is among the research-informed modalities used to help couples reduce destructive communication patterns, increase empathy and understanding, and strengthen connection.
Equine-assisted therapy brings horses into the therapeutic process, creating an experience that is different from traditional office-based talk therapy. Under the guidance of qualified professionals, clients may participate in activities involving horses while exploring emotional, behavioral, and relational patterns in a safe and supportive environment.
Interactions may include grooming, leading, feeding, or participating in other structured activities. The experience is not about becoming an expert rider or having previous experience with horses. Instead, the therapeutic focus is on what happens during the interaction—what you notice, how you respond, what emotions arise, and what the experience may reveal about your patterns and relationships.
Horses are highly responsive to their surroundings and to nonverbal communication. This can create immediate opportunities to explore concepts such as trust, boundaries, communication, emotional regulation, confidence, and connection. Sometimes, an interaction with a horse can help make an internal pattern more visible in a way that feels easier to recognize and discuss.
The outdoor setting and experiential nature of equine-assisted psychotherapy can also offer a meaningful alternative for people who feel disconnected from traditional talk therapy. Rather than sitting across from a therapist for the entire session, clients can engage multiple senses while participating in activities that create opportunities for insight and reflection.
The Psychology Lab offers an equine program that can support people experiencing trauma, anxiety, depression, grief, emotional dysregulation, addiction and recovery challenges, feelings of disconnection, and other concerns. The program also identifies support for veterans, first responders, people with disabilities or special needs, and individuals and families navigating grief. The Psychology Lab additionally offers mobile equine-assisted therapy through partnerships with existing programs.
Equine therapy may be used on its own as an experiential component of treatment or alongside other therapeutic modalities. Every experience is guided by therapeutic goals and tailored to the individual or group. If you're looking for a way to step outside the traditional therapy office and experience personal growth through connection with horses, equine-assisted therapy may offer a powerful place to begin.
Addiction can affect far more than the person using a substance or engaging in a compulsive behavior. It can impact relationships, families, work, finances, emotional health, physical well-being, and a person's sense of identity. What may begin as an attempt to cope, escape, numb emotional pain, or seek relief can gradually become a pattern that feels increasingly difficult to control.
At The Psychology Lab, we approach addiction with the understanding that recovery is rarely as simple as telling someone to stop. Addiction can involve powerful patterns connected to reward, motivation, memory, emotional distress, behavior, and life circumstances. Meaningful treatment requires looking beyond the addiction itself to better understand the factors that may be contributing to it.
Some people struggling with addiction are also dealing with trauma, anxiety, depression, grief, relationship difficulties, or a deep sense of disconnection. Others may have developed patterns of substance use or compulsive behavior over many years. Because every person's experience is different, treatment should begin with understanding the individual rather than assuming one path to recovery will work for everyone.
Therapy can help clients recognize triggers, identify patterns, develop healthier coping strategies, and build a greater understanding of the thoughts and emotions connected to addictive behavior. It can also provide a place to address the consequences addiction may have created and begin rebuilding important areas of life, including relationships, trust, confidence, and a sense of purpose.
Recovery can involve progress, setbacks, learning, and change. The goal is not perfection. It is to build the insight, skills, support, and resilience needed to make healthier choices and respond differently when difficult emotions or situations arise. Treatment can be adapted as needs change and may incorporate multiple therapeutic modalities.
The Psychology Lab offers support for people struggling with addiction and recognizes the important connection between substance use, mental health, trauma, and other life experiences. Its Recovery Lab program also specifically focuses on supporting military individuals, veterans, and their families in one space, including those facing addiction and co-occurring challenges.
Have you ever wondered why you can know you are safe while your body still feels anxious, tense, shut down, or ready to react? Polyvagal-informed therapy explores the relationship between the nervous system, emotional experience, connection, and our automatic responses to stress and perceived danger.
This approach is informed by Polyvagal Theory and focuses on how the autonomic nervous system responds to cues of safety and threat. Our bodies are constantly taking in information from our surroundings, relationships, and internal experiences. Many of these responses happen automatically, before we have time to consciously think about them.
When we experience safety and connection, we may feel more open, engaged, and able to connect with others. Under stress, the nervous system may shift into states of mobilization, such as anxiety or agitation, or into states of disconnection and shutdown. These responses are not necessarily conscious choices. They can be protective patterns developed in response to what the nervous system perceives.
Polyvagal-informed therapy can help clients develop greater awareness of these patterns. Instead of viewing every intense reaction as a personal failure, therapy explores what the nervous system may be trying to do. This understanding can create greater self-compassion while also helping clients recognize the early signs of dysregulation and develop strategies for returning to a greater sense of stability.
For people with trauma histories, certain situations, sensations, relationships, or environments may trigger powerful responses even when there is no immediate danger. Therapy through a Polyvagal-informed lens can help explore the connection between past experiences and present-day protective patterns while supporting the development of regulation, resilience, and a greater capacity for safe connection.
At The Psychology Lab, Polyvagal Theory is among the approaches integrated by clinicians working with emotional regulation, trauma, connection, and resilience. This modality may be combined with other therapeutic approaches to create care that addresses both the psychological and physiological dimensions of a person's experience.
Emotional Freedom Techniques, often called EFT tapping, is an approach that combines focused attention on a specific emotional concern with a structured sequence of tapping on designated points on the body. During the process, the client brings attention to an issue while working through a series of statements and tapping points.
The first step is often identifying one specific concern to focus on. Rather than attempting to address every difficult emotion or life problem at once, the process encourages attention to a particular experience, thought, memory, feeling, or physical sensation. This creates a clear starting point for exploring how the concern is affecting you in the present moment.
Clients may also be asked to rate the intensity of their emotional distress. This can help create awareness of how strongly the issue is affecting them before the tapping process begins and allows the client and therapist to observe whether the emotional experience changes over time.
The tapping sequence involves gently tapping on designated areas of the body while maintaining attention on the issue. A reminder phrase may be incorporated to acknowledge what the person is experiencing while also introducing an element of acceptance. The experience is intended to encourage mindful awareness rather than avoidance of difficult emotions.
Throughout the process, the focus remains on noticing what changes. Emotional intensity may decrease, remain the same, or shift into another thought, feeling, or memory that becomes important to explore. The therapist can help guide the process and determine how EFT may fit within the client's broader treatment plan.
At The Psychology Lab, Emotional Freedom Techniques is one of the modalities offered as part of its range of therapeutic approaches. For some clients, EFT may provide another way to slow down, focus attention, and explore emotional distress within a structured therapeutic setting.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, commonly known as EMDR, is a structured psychotherapy approach used to help people process traumatic and other distressing experiences. Sometimes an experience from the past continues to affect the present long after the event itself has ended. A memory may still trigger intense emotions, physical reactions, negative beliefs, or patterns of avoidance.
EMDR is based on the understanding that distressing experiences can sometimes become insufficiently processed and continue to be activated by present-day situations. A sound, place, relationship, sensation, or seemingly ordinary event may unexpectedly trigger a response connected to something that happened in the past. Even when you know logically that the danger is over, the emotional or physical response can remain powerful.
During EMDR, the therapist follows a structured process that begins with understanding your history, current concerns, and readiness for treatment. Preparation is an important part of the process. Before addressing distressing memories, the therapist works with you to develop a foundation of trust, coping skills, and emotional resources appropriate to your individual needs.
A central component of EMDR involves bilateral stimulation, which may include guided eye movements, sounds, or tactile sensations. While engaging in this process, clients are supported in bringing attention to specific memories, associated thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. The goal is to help the memory become more fully processed and integrated so it no longer carries the same level of emotional intensity.
One important difference between EMDR and some traditional forms of trauma therapy is that extensive verbal description of every detail of the experience is not necessarily required. The process is structured and collaborative, with the therapist monitoring the client's experience and helping ensure that treatment moves at an appropriate pace.
EMDR may be considered for people whose current symptoms are connected to trauma or other distressing life experiences. The Psychology Lab offers EMDR as part of its trauma-informed care and notes its use for concerns including trauma and PTSD, anxiety, depression, grief and loss, addiction and substance use, phobias, relationship difficulties, and other distressing experiences. A thorough assessment can help determine whether EMDR is an appropriate part of your treatment plan.
You do not need to know exactly which type of therapy is right for you before reaching out. In fact, many people begin therapy simply knowing that something in their life is not working the way they want it to. The role of treatment is not to ask you to arrive with all the answers—it is to help you explore the questions.
During the therapeutic process, your clinician can help you identify the concerns that are most important to address and determine which approaches may best support your goals. For some clients, one modality provides exactly what they need. For others, combining approaches creates a more comprehensive and personalized experience.
The right approach can also change over time. You may begin by building coping skills and stability, then move into deeper processing of past experiences.
You may discover that relationship work, body-based awareness, experiential therapy, or another modality helps you make connections that were difficult to access through conversation alone.
At The Psychology Lab, our goal is to provide thoughtful, individualized care that recognizes the complexity of every person's experience. We bring together a range of therapeutic approaches so treatment can be adapted to the person—not the other way around.