Help for Women:
Birmingham Anxiety and Trauma Therapy provides solutions for busy women. Women face unique and multiple conflicts today and very little help for women is readily available. They are expected to care for their partner, their children and their aging parents – all while looking absolutely beautiful! Women now have lifestyle choices like no other time in history. They can choose a traditional path like former generations, have complete independence from family and focus solely on career, or may choose a lifestyle somewhere in between those two extremes. They may choose to have children, follow a career, get married, stay single, or any combination of what has mentioned thus far. With any chosen lifestyle comes expectations from within and expectations from those around us.
While we applaud women who take on new challenges that shatter long held stereotypes, we equally support those who make more traditional personal and professional decisions. Counseling can help you understand the intentional and unintentional choices you have made thus far, enabling you to establish important priorities and make informed decisions. Our therapists will help you identify your core self and find peace with who you are, giving you the strength to design your life.
Women who take on too many responsibilities can feel anxious, stressed, and hopeless. They may feel they need extra hours to meet the challenges of each day. This can lead to irritability, depression, or conflict in relationships. Counseling can help balance life’s demands in a successful manner, heal old wounds, create more realistic goals, overcome resentment or bitterness, and navigate difficult emotions. We know that help for women and men look completely different. That is why we help to guide you through the therapy process for the right fit of therapist.
Some of the reasons women decide to enter counseling include:
Life Transitions
Women often experience the most stress during significant life changes, such as marriage, starting a family, menopause, facing an empty nest, or retirement. Our counselors can help restore a sense of balance and help you return to wellness and peace.
Balancing Roles
Women often view themselves in terms of their relationships, such as daughter, sister, mother, wife, partner, and worker. It can be challenging to balance your own needs with the needs of those around you – especially if you buy into the superhero role of handling family and career while simultaneously being the “Martha Stewart” of the neighborhood. Our therapists will help you develop a balance that fits your personal values and goals.
Women’s Health Issues
Our counselors and therapists are trained to assist with health issues specifically related to being female such as pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS), infertility, postpartum depression, sexual concerns and menopause.
Physical And Sexual Abuse
Women rarely connect their current challenges to past abuse. Abuse in any form is unacceptable and can lead to symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, avoidance, depression, anxiety, and sexual intimacy issues. Our therapists strive to provide counseling that is helpful and compassionate, with great sensitivity and awareness of how difficult it is to face past abuse experiences. We understand the sense of abandonment and betrayal that results from surviving abuse from family members or close friends. We can help you understand how the past affects your current life and relationships, alter maladaptive ways of coping, and grieve your losses. Overcoming past abuse is possible. We help you on this journey and never push you beyond what you are capable of handling. Our goal is to provide you the skills and guidance you need without re-traumatization.
Codependent Relationships
A person who is codependent has a pattern of allowing another person’s behavior to affect her and is focused on controlling that person’s behavior. The relationship usually has a destructive tone. Sometimes women are attracted to others who are unavailable or even abusive, and have a very hard time ending the relationship despite the pain it causes. Codependency is self-destructive because it causes us to develop habits or patterns that don’t work. Our counselors can help you identify codependent patterns and undo self-defeating habits.
Assertiveness And Self-Esteem
We can teach you how to state your thoughts and feelings in a confident manner as well as address conflict without anxiety or fear. We’ll help you identify negative thoughts and patterns that have governed your actions up to this point. Our counselors can help you speak up for yourself and achieve a greater sense of self-worth.
Sexual Assault Counseling, Support And Advocacy
We help women overcome the trauma of rape or sexual assault. Our highly sensitive and caring therapists can help you deal with the short-term and long-term effects of being the target of a sexual crime. We can help you deal with the whirlwind of emotions and stressors and help you gain a sense of self again.
Special Note: If you have been raped or assaulted in the past 72 hours, please contact Rape Response at 205-323-7273. They have a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner who is specially trained to assist survivors of sexual violence and give immediate medical services in a private facility.
Parenting Support
It’s known as the toughest job on earth for a reason! Being a mother requires ridiculous amounts of energy, courage, balance, thoughtfulness, creativity, patience, consistency, and love. And even though we know down deep inside that perfection is unattainable, it is a trap into which many of us often fall. Parents often struggle with guilt, fatigue, or feeling inadequate to the task – especially if you have a child with special needs. Our therapist can help you let go of the guilt and take positive steps to deal with the unique parenting stressors in your life. We will help you take care of your children while also recognizing the importance of taking care of yourself. Together, we can come up with a plan to help you manage the behavior of your children in a way that supports your values.
Premarital
Three Sessions to Wedded Bliss
Our therapists provide counseling to couples who wish to marry in order to better prepare them for the union of marriage. This focused counseling experience can help you iron out any differences before the marriage is sealed.
Cold Feet or a Message from the Universe?