Specialties
Mark Giesbrecht has extensive training and experience helping adolescents, adult and seniors in the following areas:
Life Transitions
Are you stuck? Do you have no idea of how to move forward? Is it because of the loss of someone or something that was very important to you? You might need someone to help you get unstuck. Someone who is willing to take the time to listen to your story, help identify the obstacles you are experiencing and help make a plan to move forward again. Don’t feel bad, you would have moved forward already if you knew how. It’s not your fault. I can help you.
Just reach out and contact me now.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
CBT examines how your thoughts, emotions and actions affect your life. It is highly researched and very effective in treating problems like anxiety, depression and trauma. The goals of CBT are to teach new coping skills to change how you think, how you regulate your emotions and how you make choices to help create new possibilities in your life. Mark engages in ongoing training opportunities in CBT and finds that he practices both from a cognitive orientation (e.g. cognitive restructuring) and a behavior orientation (in vivo exposure therapy). He has integrated CBT in his practice since 2006.
Contact Mark Giesbrecht today to start CBT.
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)
DBT is another highly researched and evidence-based treatment for individuals who struggle with emotional regulation and personality challenges. This treatment was developed by Marsha Linehan to help people improve their emotional and cognitive regulation skills by learning which triggers lead to over reactive emotional states. Treatment also develops coping skills to better understand the events, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to avoid undesired reactions. Mark Giesbrecht has been involved in ongoing training in DBT since 2001.
Contact Mark Giesbrecht to start DBT today.
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy
EFT is a short term, structured approach to couples therapy that came out of the research into attachment theory and emotion theory. Core emotions of fear of loss of attachment are situated deep in our past and affect how we do relationships now. In EFT the goal is to create new relationship events to transform the individuals experience and change reactive emotions with positive emotions of attachment. Research has shown that 70-75% of couples move from distress to recovery and 90% show significant improvements. Mark has had training in EFT and has integrated it’s techniques and methods in his practice since 2005.
Contact Mark Giesbrecht once he is hosting in-person sessions to begin.
EMDR
EMDR was developed to resolve trauma while minimizing re-traumatization. Trauma is often not understood by most people. Trauma is not the event that happened to you but rather how your body did not cope well after the event. There are three main symptoms of Trauma (PTSD); re -experiencing the trauma through intrusive distressing memories, emotional numbness and avoidance of the places, people, and activities related to the trauma and increased arousal like difficulty sleeping and concentrating and being easily irritated or angered.
The problem with trauma is that it is unresolved. It is like, the things that happened to you, are stuck in neuro pathways in your brain, and do not know how to resolve themselves. We can tell they are unresolved because they still upset us. EMDR is a method of resolving the past experiences by gradually and gently exposing you to the past memories while helping you make new meanings from those experiences about who you are today and what you are still capable of in your future.
Mark Giesbrecht has had extensive training for the techniques of EMDR and has practiced it since 2001.
Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing is a body awareness approach to treating trauma. It is based on research that shows how human beings have an innate ability to overcome the effects of trauma by focusing on the clients perceived body (somatic) sensations and releasing the trauma physically. The theory states that the symptoms of trauma are the effect of dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system, and that the inherent capacity to self-regulate can be restored by the procedures of Somatic Experiencing. Mark Giesbrecht has had training in Somatic Experiencing and has incorporated some of it’s techniques in his practice since 2008.
Sex Addiction
Sex is not typically addictive, but if you are avoiding emotionally intimate/vulnerable and attached relationships by engaging in compulsive sexual behaviours you may have a sexual addiction. Sexual addiction is any sexually related, compulsive behaviour which interferes with normal living and causes severe stress. Unmanageable sexual behaviours may include; compulsive masturbation, compulsive relationships, excessive pornography, paying for sex, exhibitionism, voyeurism, incest, rape, and violence. Sexual addiction follows the same progressive nature of other addictions. Sexual addicts struggle to control their behaviours, and experience despair over their constant failure to do so.
Contact Mark Giesbrecht today to assess whether you may have a Sexual Addiction.
Eating Problems
Eating problems are not problems with food, they are underlying/sub conscious problems that result in the behaviours of compulsive overeating, binge eating, purging as well as withholding food intake. Eating problems can affect both men and women and cause considerable distress and health problems as well. There are two parts to treating eating problems; first is to uncover the underlying unresolved problem and find resolution and then the second part is to develop healthy eating behaviours as well. Mark Giesbrecht has had training and experience working with men and women who have been disabled with the various forms of eating and body image challenges.
Contact Mark Giesbrecht today to learn more.
Extended Adolescence
Why do some adolescents not seem willing or able to grow up? Some individuals who are in their 20’s find it perfectly reasonable to continue living off their parents without finding long term employment or relationships. Although it is better understood today that the development period of adolescents does not actually end until age 26, we still expect our children to want to grow up. There can be a many reasons why an individual does not naturally progress. Sometimes it’s unresolved past trauma or unrecognized mental health challenges, and sometimes it’s just personal choice and parents caught up in enabling. Treatment typically involves the whole family as the family system is typically involved in keeping the adolescent stuck.
Contact Mark Giesbrecht to make a plan on how to deal with the problem of extended adolescence.
Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety disorders are very common and can effect everyone at some point of time in their life. Anxiety disorders are influenced by many factors like genetics, brain chemistry, personality, and life eve nts. They are very treatable. By using CBT techniques an individual can learn practical skills to overcome the physical sensations that occur with an anxious state and increase personal and social functioning, Anxiety disorders are highly treatable with both psychotherapy and medication.
Contact Mark Giesbrecht today to learn skills to overcome anxiety
Depression (Mood Problem)
Depression is a physical state that your body experiences when your mood lowers. Sometimes people get depressed because someone they loved has died. This type of depression may resolve over time with minimal efforts required. However, sometimes people experience depression for no reason, and it does not resolve itself no matter how hard they try to affect change. Mood disorders like major depressive episodes can be distinguished from normal sadness by the severity, persistence, duration, and the presence of specific characteristic symptoms like sleep problems or inability to remember good times in the past. Sometimes depression comes in the form of bipolar or manic depression which has times of high euphoric moods and low depressive moods.
Contact Mark Giesbrecht today to help you overcome your depression.