Center for Contextual Change

Celebrating the resilience of the human spirit and a commitment to helping others, the Center for Contextual Change (CCC) was created in 1993 to provide hope and positive change. Dedicated to assisting individuals, couples and families enhance their strengths, develop new coping strategies and heal emotional wounds, CCC utilizes a strength-based contextual therapy to empower positive transformation and restore emotional balance. We are a group of nationally recognized, highly trained psychotherapists specializing in trauma, domestic and family violence, child and adult sexual abuse, addiction, compulsion, self-injurious behavior, and severe emotional and behavioral disorders. We treat clients from age 2 throughout adulthood.

The Bodymind Integration Team at CCC is the embodiment of our commitment to offer an array of services which enhance and support the wellbeing of our clients. It is our belief that in the face of great obstacles that can challenge emotional, physical, and spiritual health, there are multiple pathways which can guide one back to a wise, compassionate and empowered self. Our team of Bodymind Integration therapists is dedicated to providing tools which help clients access their own internal resources and that also honor the wholeness that is the true nature of all living beings. All of these tools have been proven to both enhance the benefits of other therapeutic modalities as well as to have their own value as discrete services.

All the treatment practices used at CCC stem from a collaborative relationship with the client which facilitates addressing the client’s unique needs.

EMDR

An evidence-based practice using a standardized protocol of eye movements to treat trauma.

Yoga Centered Therapy

Based on the unique needs of the client, yoga is explored as a set of practices based on mindfulness and on listening to inner wisdom. Clients explore the fundamental experience of connectedness – body to heart to mind – emotions to energy to breath. Clients may also participate in trauma-sensitive yoga as well as yoga or meditation classes specifically designed to address anxiety and depression.

Transformative Insight Imagery

Transformative Insight Imagery® is a healing technique using naturally occurring internally generated images to explore a challenge or a problem and find alternative solutions. The technique is taught to the client so that they may use the healing images both in the session and at home. It is a technique used to change disturbing intrusive thoughts or body sensations as well as create healthy soothing images that can create change.

Reiki

Through the gentle laying on of hands, the Reiki practitioner sends healing energy to the physical, mind, spirit and emotional bodies of the client by accessing and utilizing Ki (known as Chi in Chinese or Prana in Sanskrit). When our Ki has become depleted due to illness, stress, or spiritual emptiness, we can experience a sense of being “out of balance”. Reiki seeks to recharge, align and harmonize all the bodies by boosting the Universal Life Force energy and breaking through whatever blockages one is experiencing.

Becoming Safely Embodied

Skills training group for trauma survivors. Topics include mindfulness; building self-compassion; self-soothing; understanding triggers; separating past from present; identifying thoughts, feelings and sensations and carving out a new, more choiceful path.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is about meeting the present moment with kindness, non-reactivity and non-judgment.  At CCC, mindfulness is taught to clients through a variety of practices both seated and moving.  Practices might include attending to breathing, body sensations, sounds, thoughts, etc. Moving meditations consisting of walking, stretching and yoga postures. Mindful activity such as mindful eating, mindful daily activities, etc. The cultivation of mindfulness has been demonstrated to affect brain structure and function and to be beneficial in the treatment of multiple conditions including anxiety, depression and traumatic stress. Additionally, mindfulness helps clients to become curious, active, empowered participants in their experience rather than feeling victimized by their emotions or conditioned physiological responses.

Expressive Arts

Clients may choose to draw or use other forms of creative visual expression as part of their treatment program. From drawings to the creation of body maps clients are able externalize and therefore explore a different perspective on their inner experience.

Somatic Experiencing (SE)

A body-centered therapeutic process developed by Dr. Peter Levine based on research into why animals in the wild do not experience post traumatic stress. SE skills help clients to access the messages of their bodies and support self-healing through an increased capacity to tolerate both challenging and pleasurable experiences. Through developing mindful curiosity for present-moment experience (rather than overwhelm), building body-awareness, and developing skills to manage their own nervous system responses, many clients experience mastery over and even the resolution of often long-held patterns of traumatic activation.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)

DBT is an evidence-based skills training developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan. Originally created for clients who were severely suicidal, DBT has proven valuable for clients dealing with many conditions.  Based on the dialectic of validation & change, DBT uses mindfulness skills to develop acceptance of Self while teaching techniques for distress tolerance, interpersonal skills and emotion regulation skills. DBT skills are taught through a 6-month group format as well as through one-on-one instruction. Clients are required to also be in individual therapy and may also chose individualized coaching to supplement their learning.

Support groups

CCC runs support groups for women with complex PTSD as well as for male survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

CCC works primarily with trauma survivors; therefore, our model is based on how to work with the effects of trauma in an individual’s life. To that end, all interventions are based around the Collaborative Stage Model, a model designed to address the resolution of trauma. The first stage in the model involves establishing a safe and empowering context for change.

We believe strongly in an integrative approach to healing that respects the client’s interest, pace and readiness for change. Incorporating our years of experience in traditional psychotherapy with time-tested approaches that include the body, and client’s own spiritual/energetic framework, our approach to the therapeutic relationship is collaborative (helping clients to recognize what works) and strength-based.

Based on our history of working with survivors of trauma, all therapists at CCC understand the specific needs of survivors and approach therapy with consideration for the individual client’s sense of safety as a priority. For example, all the therapists who incorporate yoga have specific training in trauma-sensitive yoga. Based on our collaborative approach, we encourage clients to be active participants in their therapy process and communicate their safety needs throughout the therapeutic relationship. Safety is an ongoing part of the therapy process at CCC. If there is safety in relationship, healing is empowering and accessible for the client because it is their choice.

We are able to offer a reduced fee structure. In addition, we are a network provider for Blue Cross Blue Shield and are able to bill other out-of-network insurance providers.

We treat all clients, regardless of economic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, survivor history or offending behaviors. In addition to individual therapy, CCC has ongoing groups for adolescents, LGBTQ, young adults, and adult survivors of trauma.