C O U N S E L I N G

I N D I V I D U A L

At times, Living can feel like suffering, like it’s all stress, depression, anger, and anxiety. Maybe you aren’t sure why that is for you, or maybe you’re aware of reasons for your feelings but aren’t sure how to cope and decrease the bleakness, the stress, or worry. When realities don’t match our hopes, it may seem like something is missing and life can feel incongruent. If you are feeling overwhelmed by stress, worry, or the past, individual counseling can provide tools to help you process and overcome the past, deal with the present, and look forward to the future.

Pain, grief, and sadness aren’t emotions we like to feel, but avoiding or bottling them only increases they’re debilitating power. In private and confidential therapy sessions, we will face experiences, emotions, even troubling memories. This creates space for peace, acceptance, and a positive outlook. Your emotions are messages to you, and you can learn to strengthen your heart and mind to listen to and respond in a healthy manner. This can improve your life and relationships.

An attuned therapeutic relationship can be the foundation for healing some of the wounds that life has due to trauma, relationship difficulty, isolation, and attachment issues. Cultivating an authentic, collaborative, and trusting partnership with the proper therapist is key.

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,

but by making the darkness conscious.” – Carl Jung

Phillip Barton, MS, LCPC uses treatment approaches that are evidenced-based to help clients improve and expand their outlook. Sessions will assist clients in seeing their challenges in new perspectives and provide unbiased feedback to support their journey in managing their behavior and emotional wellness.

Ascend Wellness offers experience in treating:

• Relationships • Communication Difficulties • Trauma • Sexual abuse • Stress & Anxiety • Depression • Life Transitions • Anger Management • Addictions • Boundary Setting • Grief & Loss

New client appointments are now available during the week. Call or email today to get started.

C O U P L E S

Relationships could be viewed as living, ever-changing things. They can be fragile and provide no guarantees, bringing out both good and bad in those who embark on joining together. Love sparks wonderful passion but also our deepest insecurities as we try to hold on to it (often either holding it too close, pushing it away, or doing too little to keep it alive). We are hardwired to love and connect deeply — to become the best versions of ourselves as our relationships take us to new ground and challenge our expectations and perceptions — because they always do so.

At Ascend Wellness, and with Phillip Barton, MS, LCPC, you can walk together in determining how to find and practice healthy communication and will learn to address topics instead of avoiding them or blowing up. Neither person should dismiss their own feelings to appease another, nor should one person find they are constantly "giving in," or "being flexible" to the detriment of their own outlook. Doing so leads to resentment, and resentment leads to the destruction of a relationship.

“If you avoid conflict to keep the peace, you start a war inside yourself.” — Cheryl Richardson

In love, trust is vital – but it can be diminished by small, everyday neglect or by injuries from larger violations and betrayal. In order to heal our relationships and to continue to grow in them, we must strengthen our tolerance, stretch our efforts, and deepen our understanding of what love truly requires.

Couples Counseling Areas:

• Relationship Difficulties • Communication Difficulties • Sexuality & Intimacy • Infidelity • Life Transitions • Parenting • Co-Parenting & Blended Families • Pregnancy & Birth • Boundary Setting

G R I E F & D Y I N G

Life can be seen as a series of losses. Grief and death are an integral part of our experience. While each of us is certain to face them, they’re impossible to prepare for and difficult to encounter. Often, we do not know how to deal with loss in healthy ways. You may be feel angry, guilty, uncertain or overwhelmingly sad. You may be struggling to manage the emotional ups and downs are normal in bereavement but feel agonizing. Pain needs to be understood and embraced. Grief is a normal response to loss; it’s a way of recognizing the value of who or what we no longer have. It takes us on a road of self-discovery and, eventually, renewal. It is when avoid or run away from the uncomfortable feelings that we get stuck. With proper work, you will never forget what you lost but it will no longer prevent you from functioning.

For those who are facing the end of their own life, fear, uncertainty, and anger can become overriding. Though death is a guaranteed experience for each of us, it is common to feel misunderstood, lost, and isolated when one is facing their own mortality. One’s worries aren’t only about oneself but about one’s loved ones, and how to make sure things are “in order.” Finding the right person to walk through this process can help you arrive at peace and acceptance. It is an honor to be with a person as they navigate this personal and private part of life.

Grief Counseling can help you understand and integrate your loss in ways that provide comfort. You can begin to see grief as transformative and meaningful, an experience that has added to your growth as a person. I have had the privilege of watching clients emerge from the depths of despair to feeling once again like there is “sun” in their life. I’m confident that with patience and time you too will find peace.

If you are experiencing trouble adjusting to a loss or to the prospect of your own death, call or email me today to schedule an appointment.

Phillip Barton, MS, LCPC has comprehensive training in thanatology, the study of death and dying, and provides a safe and comforting environment to assist individuals through their grieving process.

Grief Counseling can be a help in dealing with:

• Accidental death or Overdose • Caretaking & Chronic Illnesses • Suicide • Homicide • Terminal illness • End of life issues • Miscarriages • Anticipatory Grief

“The problem is not to find the answer, it's to face the answer.” — Terence McKenna