When you do not feel good, you don’t always know what you need to feel better. Sure, with some stuff like the common cold or a headache, you’ve got some go-to solutions like soup and hot showers, but other times you just know that you do not want to feel bad anymore. Mental health services usually fall into that category. I mean, yes, we do have clients who come to us because they know that they want life coaching or reiki, but other times, our clients simply want to feel happy and vibrant again. This is one of many reasons why I am not alone in private practice. Along with Sabrina Washington and Erica Sokol, we can help many more clients in more ways than I could offer on my own.
You met Sabrina Washington over the summer when we featured her life coaching programs and Reiki energy healing in our blog. So now I am excited to tell you more about Erica and the ACT therapy that she brings to Forward Emotion.
About Erica Sokol
Erica was originally a landscape designer after high school, earning an associate’s degree in Landscape Design and Turf Management. She also got married, had children, but watched her father struggle with alcoholism. Watching him go through recovery – and to have the strength to find a new way of life – inspired her and gave her a sense of hope for people who are all struggling and need additional help from time to time.
After earning her Bachelor of Art in Psychology from Argosy University and her Master of Science in Clinical Psychology from Benedictine University, she started working with children on the autism spectrum. She loved that work but also worked frequently with young women ranging in age all the way from 18 to 50s, helping them through a variety of life events. Most of them were also children of alcoholics, or had co-dependency issues, and were not living their life in accordance with their values. While working with these clients, Erica had the opportunity to work with and study under a therapist who practices ACT, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
About ACT Therapy
ACT is a type of therapy that helps clients learn that instead of trying to forget about their thoughts and emotions, they can honor those thoughts and become observers of them. Erica is passionate about helping people embrace their individuality and learn to live in alignment with the values that are most important to them. The idea is that humans begin to experience symptoms of anxiety and depression when we are not living in alignment with our values. It’s like playing tug-o-war with a monster because people become so wrapped up in their thoughts and emotions that it can be hard to breathe and understand that negative thoughts do not define them.
In ACT therapy Erica helps people identify what is really important to them. Is it family? Work? Health? Spirituality? Then they work to determine if the client is spending time actively participating in those areas of their life. When people spend time in other parts of their lives that are not as important to them, they begin to experience more anxiety and more depression because they are in an endless battle with who they truly are. It’s not their fault. Life gets busy.
How ACT Therapy Can Help
What Erica loves about being a therapist is helping people really identify and fight for their individuality. She is passionate about helping clients understand that it is ok to be an individual and live in service of the values that they hold dear. It’s ok to break away from certain expectations, like society rules, family expectations and belief systems that have been passed down, and live in a way that is congruent with who they really, truly are.
This form of therapy can help people with a variety of concerns. Therapy is never just for people in extreme situations. Although ACT can help people with very serious mental health needs, it can also help people simply live and feel better in their day-to-day life. ACT can help with body image issues, binge-eating, decision making, or anything that you want to work on in your life. She has worked with couples, young adults, Millennials, and entrepreneurs. She is a firm believer that happy individuals are the ones who figure out and embrace who they are.
To learn more about working with Erica, send a message to us at https://www.forwardemotion.com/contact/.
