Behavior Activation for Work/School Engagement

A Different View of Depression & Anxiety

A Different Approach to Engaging With Life

Behavioral Activation (BA) is a therapeutic treatment package that is based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis that can be used to disrupt the cycle of depression and anxiety. This treatment option is based on a principle that as individuals become depressed or anxious, they tend to engage in avoidance, isolation, and other ineffective coping skills. That leads to maintaining or worsening the symptoms. In other words, you feel depressed or anxious which leads to not wanting to do anything which makes you more depressed and anxious.

With the help of a trained therapist, you will be guided to understand your triggers for depression and the behaviors that you choose when you are depressed and then coached to create a plan that will help you create new behaviors that are more effective. This process is called activation and will help you to systematically stop the cycle, as you learn new ways of setting up your environment for success.

Stop the Cycle

Roadmap to Better

Understand how depression and anxiety , including the link between behavior and symptom
Identify areas in your life where you are responding in ways that are not ideal
Assess your goals using proven behavioral techniques to provide you with a clear and concrete plan for making progress that aligns with your values and future plans

Learn techniques that will allow you to approach your life differently so you can achieve your goals
Analyze your progress so that you can make changes that fit your life and lessen your symptoms of depression

Redefining Depression and Anxiety

One in four people experience at least one episode of depression or severe anxiety in their lifetime, but even though this common, it is still not completely understood. Often depression and anxiety are described and treated as an illness. We call this an internal explanation -that is something that exists inside a person. It is most common to believe that depression and anxiety are biological, like a chemical imbalance or psychological, like a pattern of negative thoughts. The biological component to depression and anxiety can be treated with medication prescribed by a doctor. The psychological component to depression and anxiety can be treated by talking with a therapist or other professional and dealing with the feelings and thoughts around depression and anxiety.

Both of these understandings and treatment options are valid and valuable, but it’s not always enough.

There is another component -the behavioral component- that is often ignored and is considered the external explanation for depression and anxiety. The behavioral component suggests that the struggle is not only a problem inside a person, but a problem with how a person interacts in their world.

"Depression is not only a problem inside of you, but a mismatch between you and how you interact in the world."

For someone who is depressed or anxious who may be seeing only the bad in themselves, a behavioral approach to can be freeing. If you believe that the problem is inside of you, it may make you feel worse about yourself and could feel impossible to change. But, if you also understand that the problem could be outside of you in your environment, you can begin to see that there is hope to change the things around you to decrease your barriers to engaging in life the way you want.

The Vicious Cycle

Depression and anxiety are often described as a vicious cycle. If you are experiencing depression, you probably understand this cycle. The symptoms often include low energy, lack of motivation, agitation, and a feeling of not getting pleasure from things you used to enjoy. A lack of enjoyment and energy or agitation leads you to withdraw, isolate yourself, and stop doing things, which leads to even lower energy and lack of motivation.

Depression or anxiety can begin with a specific event that triggers the symptoms and feelings. This could be a new event, like losing a job or the memory of a previous event, like losing a loved-one. The experience of that event causes feelings of sadness, anxiety, or despair. Those emotions lead to behaviors of inactivity and isolation, like staying inside, avoiding friend phone calls, and cancelling plans to do things that are enjoyable. Avoidance and isolation create another series of events, like friends stop calling and texting because you never want to go out anymore or your work piles up because you are avoiding it or you don’t have interesting things to do anymore. This leads to greater isolation as you feel guilty that you aren’t meeting your responsibilities or lonely because friends aren’t calling or boring because you aren’t doing things that are fun and satisfying. This loop can continue indefinitely if you don’t take steps to interrupt the loop.

Stop the Cycle

Behavioral Activation (BA) is a therapeutic treatment that can be used to disrupt the depression cycle. With the help of a trained therapist, you will be guided to understand your triggers for depression and the behaviors that you choose when you are depressed and then coached to create a plan that will help you create new behaviors that are more effective. This process is called activation and will help you to systematically stop the depression cycle, as you learn new ways of setting up your environment for success.

Our Process

Appointments and Fees

Intake Appointment

To begin therapy, we will meet for an intake session to understand your concerns, assess your needs, and agree upon a plan for treatment. This appointment typically lasts 20-30 minutes and is provided free of charge. During this appointment, we can answer any questions you might have about behavioral activation therapy and ensure that behavioral activation meets your needs. To schedule an intake appointment, please choose a session from the calendar.

Insurance and fees

Our philosophy of treatment includes clearly defined treatment goals that can make meaningful changes in your life in a relatively short period of time. Behavioral activation therapy is often completed in 20-25 sessions, although this varies from person to person. Along with your therapist, you will agree to a course of treatment that will help you to meet your goals and make lasting changes that will continue after therapy.

We accept cash, check, and credit card for payment, and payment is due on the day that the services are received. We do not currently accept insurance but will provide a detailed receipt so that you can seek reimbursement from your insurance if you desire. We are considered an out of network provider for reimbursement purposes. We are also able to accept payments from health savings accounts or flexible spending accounts.

Our hourly rate is $105 per hour. Skype and Phone Sessions are also and can be prorated for shorter session lengths. We offer packages that allow you save with an investment in multiple sessions.

The BA Difference

How is BA Different?

There are three components of depression and anxiety that should be considered for a complete treatment plan: biological, cognitive (thinking) and behavioral. The behavioral component, or how you are acting in your environment, is the most ignored component of treatment. This component is best addressed using a treatment package known as Behavioral Activation (BA).

BA is a treatment for anxiety and depression that is based on a principle that, as individuals become depressed, they tend to engage in avoidance, isolation, and other ineffective coping skills, which serve to maintain or worsen their symptoms. In other words, you feel depressed or anxious which leads to not wanting to do anything which makes you more depressed. Read more about the depression loop

The goal of BA therapy is to coach you to gradually decrease your avoidance and isolation and increase positive behaviors that have been shown to increase mood. Behavioral Activation differs from traditional “talk therapy” in that it is focused more on action and activity, rather than thoughts and feelings. BA is considered an “outside-in” approach in which you identify elements in your daily life that can be changed to impact how you feel about yourself, rather than an “inside-out” approach which you target your thoughts and feelings to change how you interact in your world.

The principles used to guide this process are based in the science known as Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). ABA is a scientific discipline that uses data collection to drive decision making for everyone’s behavior change. ABA therapists create programs to target behaviors that the client has indicated are important and use data to determine if progress is occurring so that the program can be finely tuned for the best outcomes.

Your BA therapist will guide you to make meaningful changes in your life that match your goals and values. The therapist serves as your coach and encourager as you make these changes, as well as helps you identify changes that are successful and ways that you can be more successful in the future. While the therapist facilitates this process, you will learn to use these techniques on your own. You will be a very active participant in your treatment, including keeping records, completing homework, and other tasks to further your progress, so that when treatment is complete, you feel confident in the changes that you have made.

Will BA Work for Me?

You should consider BA therapy if:

You have tried traditional therapy or medication and you don’t feel like you made enough progress
You like action-based therapy solutions
You like the idea of having objective evidence for your progress
You would like to learn a skill set that will help you avoid becoming depressed or anxious in the future
You are already involved in cognitive therapy and/or you are using medication for depression and you would like a well-rounded approach
You feel comfortable with a predictable, step-by-step approach to treatment

Our Approach

Our Step by Step Approach

Even with the promise of a therapist to guide the process, the work involved in Behavioral Activation can seem overwhelming. You may even feel like it is too much work and not even want to get started. Behavioral Activation does require that you put in some effort, but the process is broken down into manageable steps so that it is easier to move to the next level and succeed.

Step one
Get to know how you interact with your environment. With your therapist, you will identify the triggers for isolation and avoidance and your current patterns of behavior and their results.
Step Two
Identify your goals and values and define how you can actively support those goals and values. Your therapist will help you to translate your values and goals into actions.
Step Three
Identify areas in which you find pleasure and in which you can experience mastery. Your therapist will help you use this knowledge to create motivation and feelings of success in your overall activation plan.
Step Four
Prioritize the areas in which you are going to focus your efforts. Your therapist will help you create a balanced list that includes focus on values, pleasure and mastery.
Step Five
Set incremental goals with a step by step process to follow for each goal. Your therapist will help you create a list of goals that are measurable, attainable, and in line with your values.
Step Six
Create a schedule to actively engage in the steps that will allow you to achieve your goals. Your therapist will help you schedule a time in each day to meet the goals you have created and ensure that you are set up to make gradual, sustained, systematic progress.
Step Seven
Analyze your progress, troubleshoot and make changes. Your therapist will guide you to see your progress and identify the things that are working and the ways that you tweak your behavior to see greater changes.
Step Eight
Identify and employ strategies to reduce avoidance and isolation. Your therapist will coach you to identify when you are slipping into the habit of avoidance and isolation and provide feedback and tools for avoiding old patterns of behavior.

Behavior Activation for Work/School Engagement

A Different Approach to Engaging With Life

Roadmap to Better

Redefining Depression and Anxiety

The Vicious Cycle

Stop the Cycle

Our Process

Appointments and Fees

The BA Difference

Our Approach

Our Step by Step Approach

Step one

Step Two

Step Three

Step Four

Step Five

Step Six

Step Seven

Step Eight

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