Individual Therapy

Individual psychotherapy is the most common type of therapy. It involves regularly scheduled talks between an individual and a mental health professional. The sessions may focus on current or past problems, experiences, thoughts, feelings, or relationships. People often come to therapy with many different concerns, thus, the potential focus of therapy is very broad. For example, therapy could be focused on relieving symptoms (e.g. depression, anxiety, stress), improving relationships (e.g. at work, with a spouse, with family, with friends), personal growth (e.g. knowing yourself more, increasing life satisfaction), or any other concern’s one may have.

Group Therapy

Group therapy consists of a group of individuals meeting for regularly scheduled talks with a therapist. These groups can be focused on specific topics (e.g. anger management, depression, survivors of cancer, etc.) or they can be process oriented (i.e. focused on relationships within the group as a form of personal growth). Both of these forms of group therapy allow members to talk about their problems while receiving feedback and support from the group as well as from the therapist. For individuals in the group, listening to other group members share can also be a way of understanding themselves and others.

Family Therapy

Family therapy involves regularly scheduled talks between a family and a therapist. Family therapy helps families, or individuals within a family, to understand and improve the way they interact with each other. Family difficulties sometimes stem from problems in communication between family members. In family therapy, the therapist works with the family on establishing healthy communication skills in order to resolve conflict, open lines of communication, and/or improve relationships among family members.

Couples/Marital Therapy

Couples or Marital Therapy involves regularly scheduled talks between a couple and a therapist. The aim of couples therapy is often to reduce conflict in a relationship, improve communication between partners, and/or improve the quality of relationship between partners. In this type of therapy, the therapist works with the couple to establish more healthy ways of communicating in order to improve the quality of the relationship and the satisfaction of both individuals. Another form of couples or marital therapy is pre-marital therapy. In this form of therapy the therapist works with a couple that is engaged to be married. Often, the focus of this therapy is on establishing good communication skills in preparation for marriage.

Child & Adolescent Therapy

Child and Adolescent Therapy often consists of weekly meetings between a child or adolescent and a therapist. Like individual therapy, this time may focus on current or past problems, experiences, thoughts, feelings, or relationships. Oftentimes, children who are struggling with peer relationships, divorcing family situations, anxiety or depression can be helped with a brief therapy model, usually 10 sessions. For many children a special form of therapy, called play therapy is a better alternative to talk therapy. With this format, the therapist chooses games, art and activities that allow the child to express emotions that s/he may otherwise not be able to express in words. Most children and adolescents find that having a trusted adult - in addition to parents - in whom they can confide fears, worries and concerns, to be a very special opportunity.

Court Mandated Therapy

When courts become involved in people’s lives they may require that individuals, couples, families, or children participate in therapy. The Intercommunity Counseling Center welcomes court referrals, probation referrals, DCFS referrals, and the like.

Assessment and Testing

The Intercommunity Counseling Center offers a variety of psychological testing. See the Assessment section for more information.

Psychological Assessment

Psychologists use assessment primarily to measure the intelligence, personality characteristics, and cognitive (e.g., thinking, attention, memory) characteristics of an individual. There are several different types of assessment, and depending on the type(s) of information needed, the assessment can be tailored to the individual or situation.

Types of Assessment offered by ICC

Diagnostic Assessments aim to assess the nature of a person's overall personality functioning. The specific natures of these evaluations vary depending on the issues to be addressed, but they involve at least the following components: a clinical interview, a mental status examination, and one or more psychological tests. These evaluations can be brief, with the psychological testing limited to one or two short questionnaires which focus on specific concerns, or they can be long, comprehensive evaluations consisting of lengthy objective and projective measures of personality. Sometimes measures found in other evaluations may be included for more breadth, such as intellectual assessment instruments or brief neuropsychological screening measures. 

Neuropsychological Evaluations are often the most focused, but lengthiest of evaluations. Designed to assess the neuropsychological functioning of an individual, these evaluations consist of a battery of tests that can require upwards of 8 hours to complete. Comprehensive in depth and breadth, they focus on the process of neurological functioning and should not be confused with neurological tests, which are often performed with MRI's and/or CAT scans, and instead focus on the structure of the brain.

Educational Evaluations aim to assess the intellectual functioning of individuals, with a focus into areas that may impact the educational requirements of the person. These evaluations are generally performed in schools and are often done to determine the services a child, adolescent or adult may need, the type of class in which he or she should be placed, and/or to determine the type of accommodations the individual may need in the educational setting, such as additional test taking time, a tutor or a note taker. 

Vocational Evaluations focus on assisting individuals make choices surrounding potential career paths. This type of assessment is typically performed on adolescents and young adults trying to determine possible career paths or adults considering a change.