Blog | Ballen Medical & Wellness

Free Parenting Class – Last Chance For Sign-Up!

February 15, 2017 Matthew Ballen

Starting next Wednesday, February 22nd, Ballen Medical & Wellness is pleased to offer a new 10-week filial therapy group as part of our recent expansion of child and teen therapy services.

Working in a supportive atmosphere with other caregivers, you’ll gain all the skills and practice you need to perform filial therapy at home with your child. Click here to download a PDF about the group, or read below for more information.

To start the class off, we’ll be offering a FREE PARENTING GROUP WORKSHOP for the first session. There’s no obligation to continue, and the workshop gives you the perfect chance to see if this special therapy approach is right for you and your family.

To reserve your space or learn more, call our office at (720)222-0550.

What Is Filial Therapy?

Unlike traditional therapy where a child is brought to a professional therapy environment, filial therapy takes place in the home and is led by a parent or other caregiver. Filial therapy is highly effective due to the trusting relationship already developed between your child and you.

Filial therapy is a variation of play therapy, which employs toys and other playful activities to foster the development of life skills like coping and communication. Play therapy also help your child work through any issues they might be experiencing. Filial therapy adds you as a parent or other caregiver to the equation, creating an important additional benefit – enhancing the relationship between you and your child.

If that sounds a little daunting, don’t worry – the skills needed for filial therapy are easy to learn. Filial therapy sessions take place in the home just once a week, and you can enjoy very positive results with even a small number of sessions.

“Filial therapy is highly effective due to the trusting relationship already developed between your child and you.

What Can Filial Therapy Help My Child With?

Filial therapy is well-suited for mild issues and behaviors, and as well as improving overall family dynamics. Here are just some of the issues filial therapy can be helpful with:

Depression
Anxiety
Behavioral Issues
Parent/Teen Relationships
Social Skills & Communication
Divorce
Low Self-Esteem
Difficulty At School
Stress

Learn Filial Therapy In 10 Weekly 2-Hour Group Sessions

When: Wednesdays 6pm-8pm
First session: February 22, 2017
Duration: 10 weeks
Who: Parents of children ages 3 to 12 years old. Both couples and individual parents/caregivers welcome.
Cost: $50 per weekly session for individuals/$75 per couples. First session free – no obligation to continue.
Space limited to 10 individuals

How To Enroll

Space is limited to 10 individuals, so call us today at (720)222-0550 to schedule a complimentary phone consultation and learn more. We’ll make sure filial therapy is a great fit with your family’s goals and challenges, and go over everything you need to enroll.

About Your Instructor

Carol Wegmann, MS, LPCC – Adult, Couples, Adolescent & Child Therapist

Carol Wegmann, MS, LPCC, is an adult, couples, adolescent & child therapist with a focus on play therapy and mindfulness. She received her Masters of Science in Human Services with a specialization in Mental Health Counseling and a graduate degree in Play Therapy from Capella University. Carol loves helping individuals of all ages learn and grow in an environment of safety and acceptance.

About Ballen Medical & Wellness

Ballen Medical & Wellness offers the Denver, Colorado area an integrative approach to mental health and emotional well-being. We offer individual, couples, and family therapy, treating children, adolescents and adults alike. In addition to therapy, we offer traditional psychiatry and medication management as well as more holistic alternatives such as IV infusion therapy, massage therapy and reiki.

Guided by our founder, integrative psychiatrist Beth Ballen, MD, we specialize in treating a range of disorders including depression, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, bipolar mood disorder, addiction, phobias, and OCD among others. Most importantly, we offer a warm and nurturing environment where true healing can take place. Whether you and your loved ones are in crisis, dealing with adjustment and stress, divorce or separation, grief and loss, or parenting issues, we are here for you.

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to receive future posts, you can sign up for our emails and newsletters here or follow us on Facebook.

Ballen Medical & Wellness

PS – If there’s any special topics you’d like to see discussed, email us at community@ballenmedical.com and we’ll do our best to feature your interests in an upcoming post.

Introducing Filial Group Therapy at Ballen Medical & Wellness

January 28, 2017 Matthew Ballen

Beginning Wednesday, February 22^nd, we’ll be hosting a weekly filial therapy group at our center, just south of Denver in Centennial. The first session is absolutely free, with no obligation to continue. To reserve your space or learn more, call our office at (720)222-0550.

Strengthen Your Parent-Child Bond With Filial Therapy

Have you ever wished you had some of the same tools as a therapist to work with your child? Filial therapy is exactly that – a unique modality which incorporates you as a parent or other caregiver as an in-home therapeutic agent for your child. As a result, Filial therapy strengthens the bond between child and caregiver. It can also help children work through specific issues they’re experiencing. Filial therapy is highly effective due to the trusting relationship already developed between caregiver and child.

What Is Filial Therapy?

Unlike traditional therapy where a child is brought to a professional therapy environment, filial therapy takes place in the home and is led by a parent or other caregiver. If that sounds a little daunting, don’t worry – the skills needed for filial therapy are easy to learn. You also don’t need to become a full-time hybrid of parent and therapist. Filial therapy sessions take place in the home just once a week, and you can enjoy very positive results with even a small number of sessions.

“Filial therapy is highly effective due to the trusting relationship already developed between caregiver and child.”

Filial therapy is a variation of play therapy, which employs toys and other playful activities to help your child work through any issues they might be experiencing. Play therapy also fosters the development of life skills like coping and communication. Filial therapy adds you as a parent or other caregiver to the equation, creating an important additional benefit – enhancing the relationship between you and your child.

During filial therapy training, a professional child therapist works with you in our office to provide guidance and teach basic principles of play therapy. We also cover reflective listening, setting limits, acknowledging your child’s feelings, and how to improve the self-esteem of your child – all using specially selected toys in a structured weekly setting. You’ll also learn how to interact without judgment, using understanding and acceptance to further your relationship with your child. You can learn filial therapy privately, or in a group session with other parents and caregivers.

Lastly, we often suggest an initial run of 10 in-home filial sessions with your child, but often times sessions continue as both children and parents love the special one-on-one time with each other. Some parents also start sessions with other children in the household, which we encourage whenever appropriate.

Is Filial Therapy Right For Your Child?

Filial therapy is well-suited for mild issues and behaviors, and as well as improving overall family dynamics. Here are just some of the issues filial therapy can be helpful with:

Depression
Anxiety
Behavioral Issues
Parent/Teen Relationships
Social Skills & Communication
Divorce
Low Self-Esteem
Difficulty At School
Stress

Learn Filial Therapy In 10 Weekly 2-Hour Group Sessions

Starting on February 22nd, Ballen Medical & Wellness is pleased to offer a new 10-week filial therapy group as part of our recent expansion of child and teen therapy services.

Group Filial Therapy At Ballen Medical & Wellness

When: Wednesdays 6pm-8pm
First session: February 22, 2017
Duration: 10 weeks
Who: Parents of children ages 3 to 12 years old. Both couples and individual parents/caregivers welcome.
Cost: $50 per weekly session for individuals/$75 per couples. First session free – no obligation to continue.
Space limited to 10 individuals

What Can You Expect Each Week?

Week 1: Introduction of participants and their struggles, overview of process, and education of reflective responding and identifying and reflecting feelings.
Week 2: We’ll review basic principles, goals, and guidelines for parents when engaged in a play session with their child. This week also includes toy lists, demonstrations, education, and role-play.
Week 3: We’ll start the parent-child at-home sessions including supporting materials, skills, role-play practice, and demonstration.
Week 4: Video reviews, constructive feedback, and the introduction and practice of limit-setting skills.
Week 5: Support and encouragement through peer review, as well as continued role-play practice.
Weeks 6 to 9: Discussion regarding positives and struggles of play sessions and behavioral challenges at home. Continuation of education and practice of parenting skills as well as skills implemented during in-home sessions including: limit-setting, self-esteem building, encouragement versus praise, and implementing skills outside of in-home sessions.
Week 10: Evaluation and closure.

How To Enroll

About Your Instructor

Carol Wegmann, MS, LPCC – Adult, Couples, Adolescent & Child Therapist

About Ballen Medical & Wellness

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to receive future posts, you can sign up for our emails and newsletters here or follow us on Facebook.

Ballen Medical & Wellness

PS – If there’s any special topics you’d like to see discussed, email us at community@ballenmedical.com and we’ll do our best to feature your interests in an upcoming post.

Thank You For An Amazing Year

January 4, 2017 Matthew Ballen

Before we get too far into the new year, we just wanted to take a quick moment to share a deep and heartfelt thank you for giving us the privilege of helping you and your loved ones last year.

Gratitude is one of our favorite subjects, and we’ll be blogging about gratitude practices and mindfulness more in the coming months. For now though, here’s some reflections on gratitude directly from our team. We truly love coming into the center each day because of you, and we look forward to experiencing the successes and challenges of 2017 together.

Ronna Evans, LCSW, Counseling for Adults, Families, Children & Adolescents:

Ronna Evans, LCSW

I’m grateful to witness the positive changes my clients have made this year. Many of them have focused on forgiveness of others and/or themselves. It’s been a huge gift to witness their courage and the depth of compassion they have developed over the year!

Thinking outside the office, I’m so grateful to have friendships of honesty, compassion and support.

Leslie Vannucci, NP, Family Psychiatric & Mental Health Nurse Practitioner:

I am incredibly grateful to work with compassionate and caring people who genuinely care for our clients and their well-being and health.

Beth Ballen, MD, Integrative Psychiatrist, Children, Adolescents & Adults:

We had a lot of growth and changes over the year, and I’m so grateful for the patience, kindness, and encouragement we’ve received from our clients as well as our fellow practitioners throughout the Denver area.

Beth Ballen, MD, Founder of Ballen Medical & Wellness

I can’t think of the past year without being thankful for the amazing team of therapists, nurses, practitioners and office support staff that we’ve put together. We’ve assembled the perfect, ideal team for the center, and I truly love everyone I work with. We’re all so supportive of each other, and this makes me look forward to coming to the center each and every day. Integrative health is my passion, and I’m so grateful that we have the perfect team to provide this.

I’m also incredibly grateful for the privilege of working with our clients. It takes a special kind of trust and openness from clients to do the work that we do, and I have found so much more meaning in my life through their sharing, their trust, and their commitment to healing and health.

Lastly, to match my patients’ openness, I become increasingly aware of aging and mortality with each passing year, so I’m grateful for my health and wellness.

JoAnne Palladino, Reiki & Healing Touch Practitioner:

Gratitude is a beautiful topic.

I practice being in the moment which allows me to be aware of life in a more expansive way. I find that my senses are heighten allowing me to take in what is unfolding in front of me one breath at a time. I am grateful that I ‘see’ through eyes of wonder and I ‘hear’ from of place of silent listening.

Gratitude is heart centered and comes from a place of unconditional love. I feel so honored to be with precious souls who are willing to step into the ‘unknown’ to receive and experience Reiki energy which invites them to realize a calming peaceful state of being. With gratitude I thank you all for trusting and allowing me to extend the gift of Reiki healing energy to you. Namaste!

with light, JoAnne

Barb Schneider, Front Desk Manager:

Barb Schneider

I am very thankful to have found such a wonderful office to work for. I thoroughly enjoy my fellow coworkers, but I also enjoy each client that comes into the office.

Outside of the office, I am thankful that I have a wonderful supportive husband that understands me for who I am.

Tara Cox, RN, CRNI, Certified Nurse of Infusion:

Looking back at 2016, one thing I am very grateful for is the opportunity to begin work at Ballen Medical as well as the Colorado Recovery Infusion Center. Over the past few years, I have been in high stress management positions in the nursing field and I truly missed working with patients directly. I was also struggling with work/family balance, and felt disconnected from what drew me to nursing work in the first place. After doing some meditation work, re-centering, and really focusing on my goals, intentions, and desires, I decided to look for a practitioner that believes in holistic medicine and an integrative approach to healthcare. I found that in Dr. Ballen and the center! I am extremely grateful and beyond excited to be a part of this team and to be able to do what I love and specialize in (IV infusion therapy), as well as to help to provide healing to the amazing people that walk through our door.

Additionally, I am thankful every day for a relationship in which I can be 100% me and having a love that supports me through the rough times and pushes me gently in the times of growth; and our amazing children that continue to challenge us, flourish, and make us proud of the individuals they are becoming.

Carol Wegmann, MS, LPCC, Adult, Couples, Child & Adolescent Therapist:

I feel very grateful for the people I work with. As I reflect on the past year, these individuals have created such a warm and caring environment for clients and clinicians both. The support Ballen Medical has given me as a clinician goes above and beyond the average office, providing true help, collaboration, and growth. This support enables me to become a better counselor and allows me the opportunity to be fully present for my clients.

Carol Wegmann, MS, LPCC

I am also grateful that Ballen Medical is focused on the whole person and provides a holistic approach to mental health. More and more studies are being published that cite nutrition, sleep, mindfulness, exercise, and more as influential on mental health, and Ballen Medical encompasses these aspects of daily living into our practice. It is important to me to be able to collaborate and implement these ideas when helping each client’s individual needs.

Personally, I am also grateful for my daily growth and ability to mindfully be present with every encounter (or at least try). I find I can learn so much more when I am present for others and feel a sense of peace and empathy when I can practice this. I am also grateful that I am present to watch my children and grandchildren grow, learn, and explore the beauty of this world around us.

5 Tips for the New Year from Therapy & Reiki Practitioners

December 28, 2016 Matthew Ballen

As we transition to a new year, it can be a time of anxiety, stress and unrealistic expectations. Here are some recommendations from our team of therapy and wellness practitioners to help you navigate the start of 2017.

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1. Take Inventory of Your Accomplishments from Last Year

(from Ronna Evans, LCSW – Adult, Family & Teen Therapist, Couples Counselor)

We tend to focus on what didn’t work for the past year, but it’s really important to acknowledge the successes we’ve had as well. Don’t just criticize or beat yourself up – appreciate your efforts and accomplishments as well. We need this balanced approach to be encouraged as we enter the new year.

A journal is one of many great ways to reflect on your accomplishments over the past year.

I like to work with my clients in a detailed process where we go over the last year and discuss what their struggles were and what their accomplishments were. I try and avoid skipping over things. If a client says something like “I had so much more patience with my daughter,” I’ll say that’s great, but could you give me a few specific examples of how you did that? Even small victories are important to acknowledge so we can enter the new year feeling uplifted and reminded that we can make change even though it’s often difficult.

2. Don’t Forget About The Stuff In The Middle

(from Deede Amhowitz, MA/MFT – Individual, Couples & Group Therapist)

I find that most people dwell on the extremes as we enter a new year. They focus on the best and worst things that came to fruition last year, but most of life happens in the middle. So instead of just thinking in the extremes, take some time to be more realistic and evaluate all the stuff in between too. What do you want to keep around from the more everyday portions of our lives? What do you want to get rid of? It might not be as exciting as thinking about the extremes, but it’s crucial to staying grounded and planning realistically for the new year.

3. Stay In The Present

(from JoAnne Palladino, Reiki & Healing Touch Practitioner)

As we enter a new year, there’s a tendency to dwell on the past and the future, so I encourage my clients to live more in the present. When we focus on the future, we often create stories of fear which in turn create anxiety, but if you’re able to be engaged in the moment that’s where life is actually unfolding.

One great tool for living in the present is connecting with our breath and our breathing. The inhale and the exhale only happen in the moment. They’re not happening in the past and they’re not happening in the future. Being aware of our breathing brings us directly to where life is being lived – and that’s in the present moment.

This is also helpful when we feel anxiety. Just pause and stop for a moment or two, place your hand on your heart or your solar plexus and take a pause, then take a nice deep breath and just be really present with when the body inhales a breath and exhales a breath. It anchors us in our bodies, and helps us get in the flow of life. It’s a time-honored practice that’s been followed for thousands of years. It quiets the mind when you follow the breath, and it also relaxes the body. Thoughts get calmer, and our bodies gets calmer and less anxious, and we begin to live life from that space.

4. Don’t Forget To Play

(from Carol Wegmann, MS, LPCC – Child, Adult & Couples Therapist)

This advice comes to us from our child therapist, but for those of us without children, blocking out phone-free for our loved ones – or even ourselves – is a great way to de-stress and enter the new year feeling recharged.

As we come off the holidays and start a new year, many parents feel stressed, anxious, sad or depressed, and children are often very attuned to this. They feed off everything their parents feel, even if they might not fully understand it or have the words to express it.

As a play therapist, I really recommend paying extra attention to our children during this time. Take some toys out, play games, and get moving. Take a walk. Play in the snow. Exercise together. Dance. It’s stress relief for you as well as your children, and this time together is invaluable. Make sure to block out ample time without your phone and without an agenda. This time is especially important if you’ve noticed any changes in your child’s behavior, as most children won’t directly communicate they need more attention.

And if your kids are older, make extra time for them too. Teens might say they’re embarrassed of us, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want our attention and our time. Even if it’s just catching a movie or having lunch at a favorite restaurant, they usually want our company more than they’ll admit.

5. Set An Intention Instead Of A Resolution

(from JoAnne Palladino, Reiki & Healing Touch Practitioner)

The new year is often a time of creating resolutions, which we often have a hard time keeping. Our Reiki practitioner JoAnne recommends setting intentions instead.

By definition, resolutions are hard and firm decisions. Only the smallest minority of people who set resolutions wind up keeping them, and this often makes people feel bad. Intentions are more open and fluid, and can be set any time. They can be adjusted and expanded upon, and can even be different every day.

Setting an intention is about beginning to approach some aspect of life in a different way, a way that will enliven you and nourish you versus a way that’s going to deplete you or cause more anxiety in your life. An intention is for your betterment, or for self-love, or honesty. Intentions like this bring people back to themselves, instead of going outward to look for a resolution to your challenges and issues. Intentions can also bring you to the moment instead of shifting all your focus to the future.

An intention that will invite an uplifting within someone’s life might be as simple as thinking “I’m not going to say yes to everything, because every time I do that I get exhausted and then I’m angry that I said yes.” With that intention in mind, you can pause before you agree to something, and think “Is this something that I really want to do?” It’s not that you love someone less or don’t want to help them – it’s about giving yourself some self-care so you don’t get depleted.

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to receive future posts, you can sign up for our emails and newsletters here or like us on Facebook.

Ballen Medical & Wellness

PS – If there’s any special topics you’d like to see discussed, email us at community@ballenmedical.com and we’ll do our best to feature your interests in an upcoming post.

Coping With Family & Other Holiday Challenges (Part 2 of 2)

December 22, 2016 Matthew Ballen

As joyous as the holidays can be, it’s also a difficult time for many people. We sat down with two of our center’s therapists, Ronna Evans, LCSW, and Deede Amhowitz, MA/MFT, to get their takes on what kind of issues people face the most during the holidays, as well as some great practical strategies for coping such as grounding our expectations, setting some boundaries, and making sure we take care of ourselves.

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In Part 1 we talked a lot about coping with our families over the holidays. But what about those of us who might be alone during this time?

Ronna Evans, LCSW

Ronna: People have very different attitudes about this, actually. Some appreciate the time to themselves and feel like “Hey, I finally get to rest and relax. I am purposely going to go to this cabin and just have alone time for a week.” But of course there’s many people who struggle with being alone over the holidays.

Deede: I think it also depends on what people celebrate. Some people think Christmas is just a day. It’s just a Sunday. December 25th is just a day to them. It comes back to expectations. And if they want to celebrate and be around people and they can, that’s great – but if they want to and they can’t, that’s of course where it becomes an issue.

So what can someone do if they’re struggling with being alone during the holidays?

Ronna: You know, people can be very self-judgmental about being alone during this time. If I can get them to be less judgmental, often times the loneliness is much less of a struggle.

Deede: Some of my clients don’t have family around, so they’ll try to spend time with their chosen family or their friends or a friend’s family, which of course are all great options. But if those aren’t possibilities, then self-care is really important. For instance, there have been times when I’ve been alone on Christmas. Maybe it’s a year where we celebrated with my family on a different day, or maybe it’s a year where I don’t have Madison, my daughter. In that case I might go to a movie or treat myself to something else special. I would really make self-care a priority. Maybe that means going out to a nice dinner or getting a massage, but it could also mean going on a hike, playing music or being creative – it really depends on the person.

What is it about self-care that’s so important? What does it really do for people?

Deede Amhowitz, MA/MFT

Deede: Self-care helps us to re-center, to get our balance back, to rejuvenate, to rest. Many people are so focused on their jobs, their partners, their families, their friends, or all of the above. They feel bad about taking time for themselves, like they should just always kind of be in service to everyone else, and that can be incredibly stressful and draining if time for self-care isn’t also made a priority sometimes. Obviously if your kiddos or husband or whoever need something urgent, yes, of course that’s important, but we’re usually better to be around when we take care of ourselves too.

There’s so much stress in our lives usually. It seems like self-care might be one of the few times we’re not thinking about stressful things or actively adding more stress.

Deede: Absolutely. People really need to learn not to feel bad about taking time for themselves. We really need this time.

Ronna, you spoke about being self-judgmental. Could you talk about that a little more?

Ronna: Definitely. I like to ask people whether their thoughts are helping or hurting. A really good book to reference here is The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer. He encourages us to look at our thoughts without any value judgments, to just see them like a witness. Seeing our thoughts from a distance, and with some neutrality, can really give us the chance to get out of negative patterns like self-judgment. I really recommend that book for anyone struggling with negative thoughts, though it’s a great book for many other reasons as well.

Deede, you have a skills-based approach to your therapy. What would you say to someone having negative thoughts about being alone over the holidays?

Deede: I think it really depends on the intensity of what they’re experiencing. Where it becomes dangerous and unhealthy is when the “Okay, I’m alone” spirals into “I don’t have anyone, no one loves me, I’m unlovable, I’m going to die alone, etc..” That’s when I would say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa” and try to put on some brakes. At that point, maybe it’s time to use some skills like CBT [Cognitive Behavioral Therapy].

We can use CBT skills to ask questions, like “What’s the truth here? What’s going on?” And maybe that spiral about being unlovable and dying alone turns into something like “Hey, yes, I am alone today, and I feel sad about that. However, I have people. I have friends or family, and dying alone really isn’t something I need to be thinking about right now.” People can go from A to Z way too easily in many cases, but using CBT skills can get you out of that spiral while still acknowledging the validity of your thoughts and feelings.

A lot to keep in mind for a time of year that’s supposed to be fun, right?

Ronna: Well, I would definitely question that in some cases. Maybe the dynamic in our family just isn’t fun – or maybe our dynamic with ourselves isn’t in harmony yet. So we have to look realistically at everything. It comes back to expectations again, and really having a grounded view that isn’t making things harder than they have to be.

Stay tuned for more posts about adult and child therapy, relationships, psychiatry, IV infusion therapy, naturopathic medicine and more. And if you liked this post, please consider signing up for our posts and newsletters here or like us on Facebook.

Thank you for reading!

Ballen Medical & Wellness

PS – If there’s any special topics you’d like to see discussed, just let us know and we’ll do our best to feature your interests in an upcoming post. Just email us at community@ballenmedical.com with what’s on your mind.