No single method fits every person, and no honest therapist pretends otherwise. My approach is integrative — sometimes called eclectic — which means I’m trained across the major schools of therapy and build your treatment from whichever tools actually fit you: sometimes a whole framework, sometimes pieces of several, always tailored to the person or people in the room. Below is the toolbox, in plain language. And whichever tools we use, sessions are interactive — real dialogue and full engagement.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
What it is: The most-researched modern therapy. CBT works on the connection between thoughts, feelings, and behavior — noticing the automatic thoughts that drive distress, testing them against reality, and building new patterns. Practical, structured, skills-based.
How I use it: For anxiety, depression, and stuck thinking loops — often with between-session practice, because the work that changes your week happens during your week. [1]
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
What it is: A skills-focused therapy built on a balance of acceptance and change. Four skill families: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness.
How I use it: For big emotions that arrive fast and leave damage — and it’s especially effective with teens, who are often relieved to learn that regulating a feeling is a skill, not a personality trait. [2]
Psychodynamic / Psychoanalytic Therapy
What it is: The depth work. Present-day patterns — who you’re drawn to, what you avoid, the argument you keep having — usually have roots in earlier relationships and experiences. Psychodynamic therapy surfaces those roots so they stop steering from below.
How I use it: When the same problem keeps arriving in different costumes. Insight into the why is what makes the change durable. [3]
Humanistic / Person-Centered Therapy
What it is: Carl Rogers’ legacy: the client is the expert on their own life, and growth happens inside a relationship of genuine, unconditional acceptance. The therapist’s job isn’t to fix you — it’s to provide the conditions in which you un-stick yourself.
How I use it: This is the floor everything else stands on. Whatever tools we pick up, the relationship stays warm, honest, and judgment-free. [4]
Solution-Focused Therapy
What it is: Brief, future-oriented work. Instead of excavating the whole past, it asks: what does better look like, what’s already working even a little, and what’s the smallest next step?
How I use it: When there is a specific decision, transition, or goal — and for clients who want traction fast. [5]
Grief Therapy
What it is: Support through loss — death, divorce, health, a chapter of life, a version of yourself. Grief is not a problem to solve on a schedule; it’s a weight you learn to carry, and it doesn’t follow anyone’s timeline.
How I use it: Making room for the loss to be spoken, keeping the connection to what was lost, and rebuilding a life that holds both the grief and what comes next. [6]
Reality Therapy
What it is: Built on choice theory: nearly everything we do is a choice aimed at meeting a basic need. Reality therapy stays in the present and asks whether what you’re currently doing is actually getting you what you want — and if not, what would.
How I use it: For accountability without shame. It pairs naturally with clients who like directness and want to focus on what is in their control. [7]
Narrative Therapy
What it is: You are not your problem — you are the author of a story that currently features one. Narrative work separates the person from the problem, examines the story you’ve been telling about your life, and re-authors it with you holding the pen.
How I use it: Powerful for identity, self-worth, and clients who’ve been handed a story about themselves by someone else. [8]
Gottman Method (Couples)
What it is: The research heavyweight of couples work — built on decades of studying what actually predicts whether relationships last. It maps a couple’s conflict patterns, friendship, trust, and repair attempts, then trains the specific skills their pattern needs.
How I use it: As a backbone for couples work — see the Couples Therapy page. [9]
Ready to find the right tools? Call or text (559) 777-SELF (7353) · lisa@ruscatherapy.com · Client Portal