Individual Counseling in Marietta, GA

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Need Help Finding An Individual Therapist In Marietta GA?

You Deserve a Life Full of Joy and Satisfaction

If you’re overly stressed, frustrated, irritated, lonely, depressed, and/or anxious, others may tell you to count your blessings, be happy and/or get over feeling that way.  With such invalidation, I imagine you feel more distressed because you know that it’s not that easy to “flip a switch.”

 

reducing co-dependency

 

As a licensed psychologist with over 40 years of experience, I can create a supportive environment to explore a path toward more satisfaction and happiness.  I can assess the intensity of your distress, help you identify the underlying causes (including genetics, experiences, and learned beliefs) of your distress and unhappy feelings, as well as assist you in healing from past traumas.  I can further help you create a plan to reduce your stress and distress, modify your habitual reactions, discover your strengths, make healthier choices, and focus on becoming more hopeful, satisfied, and happy.

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What to Expect from Individual Counseling

The first step in therapy counseling is to call for an initial phone consultation at 770-952-3308. During this call, I will answer your questions about therapy and describe the therapeutic process. If you decide to proceed, we will schedule weekly 50-minute sessions.

Before your first session, you will complete a history questionnaire about your background and your goals (see Client Forms). As you proceed, you’ll additionally complete some assessments about your preferences, your personality, your emotional responses, and your health and lifestyle.

individual counseling in marietta ga

These assessments will help both of us to better understand your assets and liabilities, your unique situation, and your hopes and desires for the future.  Additionally, I’ll listen to your issues, validate your experience, and formulate ideas to help you. I’ll support you in learning how your experiences as a child affected your current emotional responses, and in discovering any current and past unhelpful choices of action and people.

I’ll help you heal from past hurtful experiences and develop healthier coping strategies to manage stress and deal with challenges as well as create more emotional resilience.  I’ll help you reduce your distress by thinking more constructively. I’ll help you identify your strengths, healthy behavior, and current supportive people.  You’ll create a vision and a plan for making better choices moving forward.  I may suggest helpful reading material and I will encourage you to practice your newly learned skills and behaviors between sessions. For more information, read Getting Your Life Back on Track.

Benefits Of Individual Therapy

Reducing Stress in your Life

Individual Counseling potentially can have many benefits. With your cooperation, Dr. Miller can help you:

  • Learn and Use Effective Coping Techniques by minimizing stressful events when we can, as well as by better managing our emotional reactions by changing our unrealistic thinking and therefore producing more effective and considerate responses.  As we experience better responses, we will build more resilience.
  • Increase Self-Acceptance by learning to appreciate and enjoy our assets and achievements while at the same time acknowledging that we have liabilities, some of which might be able to be modified and some of which might not.
  • Improve the Quality (and possibly the Quantity) of our Sleep by lessening our stressful thinking and developing better sleep habits and patterns.
  • Improve Productivity by setting realistic goals and eliminating unnecessary tasks and distractions, tracking the completion of our tasks, creating an appropriate sense of accomplishment, and resetting our goals as needed.
  • Improve Physical Health by reducing our reaction to stress, reducing the amount of intake of salt (to lower blood pressure) and sugar, creating a better food plan and meal routine, and developing a reasonable exercise plan.
  • Improve Interpersonal Relationships through developing more compassion, becoming more considerate of others, improving communication skills, and investing more time and energy in connecting with people.
  • Increase Happiness as we: invest in satisfying activities; feel emotionally better; are physically more active; enjoy our choices and achievements; focus our energy on something meaningful; laugh more; and celebrate our relationships and experiences.

Frequently Asked Questions About Individual Therapy

When individuals are open to feeling better, examining their thoughts, choices, and responses, taking responsibility for their choices, and exploring making changes, then individual counseling is usually very effective. 

The counseling is designed to help individuals: learn about how their past choices affect them now; take responsibility for their actions; decrease negative reactivity; resolve unrealistic frustrations; increase hope and compassion; and develop more resiliency.

Research shows that distressed individuals who eagerly participate in the counseling process are more likely to feel happier and more content after their counseling than similar individuals who have not received counseling.

Anyone who is unhappy and is open to making the kind of changes that would lessen their distress and increase their happiness can benefit from individual counseling.

The length of counseling varies with each individual and with the specific goals that an individual has.  The length often depends on what experiences each person has had previously, how damaged the individual feels, the individual’s personality style and current coping strategies, and how open and willing the individual is to learn the skills that might mitigate their unhappiness.  As individuals near the end of therapy, it’s usual for them to spread out their sessions.

Although there are many different types of therapy, the primary three theoretical approaches are psychodynamic, humanistic-existential, and cognitive-behavioral approaches.

Psychodynamic therapy draws on psychoanalytic (or Freudian) principles and techniques. This includes examining and resolving unconscious conflicts. The client's early history is seen as extremely important in the formation of the character structure of the person. There is an assumption that the client will be able to make desired changes only after the underlying causes are resolved.

Humanist-Existential psychotherapy considers the whole person (mind, body, and spirit) and focuses on helping the client to heal themselves and work toward a more authentic self. It aims at enabling a client to find constructive ways to better deal with the challenges of life, and focuses on the client's individual experience of distress, and leads to exploring and clarifying beliefs and values. It examines core issues including freedom vs. responsibility, isolation, and meaninglessness. It respects the importance of the past, present, and future.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy focuses on helping clients identify and examine unrealistic and faulty beliefs, distressing emotions, and ineffective behaviors. The client learns to think more realistically, which will lead to feeling better, and then chooses more effective actions. In this system, the present and the future is more important than the past.

Since no one therapy approach works for all people and for all problems, Dr. Joan Miller borrows from the different approaches to help clients based on their situations and needs.

Costs vary depending on the therapist’s education, experience and location.  The average cost of individual counseling in Georgia ranges from about $85 to $350 per 50-minute session. Most clients recognize that counseling is an investment in themselves as well as their future.

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Meet Dr. Joan Miller

I'm passionate about helping individuals increase their happiness. I look forward to helping you clarify your issues, make healthier decisions, improve your relationships, and take positive actions to create satisfying lives.”   - Joan Miller, Ph.D.

Dr. Joan Miller has practiced as a Licensed Psychologist in Marietta, GA for over 40 years. During that time, she has assisted hundreds of individuals to develop a better relationship with themselves, overcome adversity, reduce distress, learn more effective coping strategies, clarify their goals, improve their relationships, and have more enjoyment.

For more information about Dr. Miller, read Dr. Joan Miller’s Background. For information about her practice (including directions to the office), read Practice Information.

You’ll find useful articles and books under the Self-Help section. For answers to general questions about therapy, read the FAQ section.

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Other Counseling Services by Dr. Miller in Cobb County

marriage counseling service

Marriage Counseling

Many couples are not happy in their marriage, with the most common complaint being an inability to amicably resolve their differences. They frequently will either continuously argue, or they will not talk about issues.  Both strategies lead to resentment and bitterness.  Therapy can help couples learn to listen carefully, validate each other, and negotiate a mutually acceptable resolution. Research shows that marriage counseling usually significantly improves the chances that a couple will stay together.

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Couples and Premarital Counseling

Dr. Joan Miller can help couples understand the predictable stages of the development of a relationship, including the ecstasy of “Falling in Love” and the inevitable disillusionment of “Falling out of Love.”  She can also support couples to create a satisfying and sustainable relationship by: becoming more considerate of each other; communicating more effectively; resolving their problems; making appropriate accommodations; creating more emotional and physical intimacy; and developing a vision for their future.

Searching For Couples and Marriage Counselors Near Me?

joan miller phd doctors building

My office is located in the Doctors' Building at 2520 Windy Hill Road, Suite 106, Marietta, GA 30067. This building is located to the right of the WellStar Windy Hill Hospital, one mile north of I-285, 1/2 mile west of I-75, and one mile east of Highway 41 (Cobb Parkway). Click Here For Directions.

770-651-0753