Getting to know Carl Chinn

First of all, thank you for considering me to help you through the hard time you’re experiencing. I have a deep spiritual conviction that we’re all on the same human team and that we are all in this together. I want to be an active member of your team and have a wealth of experience to offer. I’ve been a counselor since 2012 and have had hundreds of folks walk through my door.

Rather than focusing on trying to heal our wounds from the past, the kind of treatment I offer is similar to the mental health version of physical therapy. Rather than stitching a wound together and scratching the scar that it leaves behind, we’re aiming to increase your strength and flexibility so that you’re not only back to your old self, you may even feel better than you did before these issues first started causing trouble for you. Often by strengthening the muscles around your knee, it takes the pressure off your knee and it’s able to heal more naturally.  We’ll do the same thing with your mind.  Learning to flex the muscles surrounding your mind is the discipline that I offer.

It’s a lot of work but the results are very consistent. We get better at whatever we practice. For many folks, they’ve struggled with running away or hiding from things, and fair enough, our troubles can be terrifying. With me on your team, I hope to help you take the steps to practice getting stronger, to grow our bravery, our courage, and our sense of purpose. If those are stronger than the things that have previously dragged us down, we’ll make progress.

What should a new client know about working with you?

It’s been my experience that the clients I’ve had have had one of three different kinds of experiences with therapists in the past:

• The first kind of therapist can offer to help you vent but if you’ve already done that and already know what the problem is, venting might not change anything.
  
  
• The second kind offers coping skills which can give you some control, the same way Ibuprofen will, but it might not do anything to heal the broken bone underneath the pain.
  
  
• The third is the category I put myself in, and what you can expect from me, and that’s “processing”. It’s my win condition to help you with growing a framework-based skillset that you can use long after we’re finished, that will help you to continue growing your strength, intercepting any problems, and live the life you aspire to live.

The techniques that I use come from REBT, Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy. It’s a therapy that’s been reliably getting people results for more than 70 years now and has it’s roots deeply embedded in the philosophies of Zen and Stoicism. Through using these cognitive techniques in conjunction with their existential roots, our sessions and your homework will be aimed at routinizing what I compare to a mental “kung fu.” The goal is that the more you practice, the more of a mental muscle-memory will develop that will be dealing with problems before you even notice them. And if those problems require direct attention, these techniques can serve as a rigid systematic artform for dealing with them.

What is your typical process for working with clients?

Based on my previous clients, I’ve found that clients typically find a profound reduction in symptoms within 3 months of weekly sessions if they complete their homework assignments. Though there are many factors that may detract from this average, it’s my expectation that therapy ends when you’ve found the success that you’re looking for. My business model is that people get results and tell others about my services rather than trying to hold onto people forever.

The intake session is unique in that it’s an hour of me asking you questions about what has been bothering you so I can get to know your situation better. The sessions that come after that entail a review of homework, followed by some processing and concluding in more homework. These assignments are generally something folks look forward to and feel energized about rather than being laborsome chores. The great part of being strength-based rather than wound based is that most of our conversations are aimed at you feeling stronger which we consistently aim for.

Though I prefer to see people weekly for close follow-through on progress in treatment, I can balloon treatment out to monthly if people can commit to the homework requirement, which is increased to make sure that progress remains consistent. People’s situations are different and I’m open to finding a way to work together.