Nardi and Stube - Licensed clinical Counselors

Trauma

Following a horrific life event or in the aftermath of childhood abuse, you may have difficulty managing stress, find yourself feeling depressed and overwhelmed, or feel behaviorally out-of-control. You might struggle with ever letting people into your heart and question your ability to be a good parent or partner. You may feel angry most of the time and continually have to fight the emotional roller coaster of your life or just "checking out" of your life. Trauma seems to take over and affect everything you do. We can help you find a fulfilling emotional life after trauma and emphasize the development of skills to calm yourself down and re-engage the people and world around you.

Anxiety and Depression

Depression makes you feel worthless, question the meaning of your existence, and challenge your capacity to experience joy in anything. Frequently, depression and anxiety go hand-in-hand, and you may worry so much about everything that you are robbed of sleep and energy. Anxiety makes it hard to be present in your life because you are so worried about what might go wrong now or in the future. We can offer you cognitive-behavior interventions that can change the difficult and sometimes destructive behaviors that depression and anxiety create. We can share strategies that help you be more emotionally present and rediscover the meaning in your life.

Recovery

If you've tried an AA approach to ending substance use and didn't find it useful or effective, we can offer you a different perspective that has no requirement for admission of powerlessness over addiction nor belief in a higher power. We work from the position that substance abuse and addiction are not a disease, that you are completely in control of your substance use, and that you are not dependent upon meetings or other people in your life to choose and maintain sobriety.

Family-friendly Divorce

If you are seriously considering divorce, we can help you sort out the many complexities involved in the process. You may discover that you simply want an end to your present way of being married and choose to give it another try. Or you may realize that you really do choose divorce. Whatever the outcome, we can assist you in examining all aspects and in making your decision with your eyes wide open.

Should you choose divorce, we can guide you through it in a way that keeps you focused on the best interests of your children and keeps an eye on minimizing the trauma they will experience. Through our services of family therapy, family mediation, and parenting plan preparation, you can divorce with greater control of the outcome and in ways that encourage lifelong healthy family interaction instead of destruction.

Family Mediation and Parenting Plan Preparation. If the divorce happens to parents it happens to children, too. David can help you design a parenting plan that works for your child (or children), reduces fights between the parents, and makes family peace. In 1998, David and Julie researched parenting plans in Western Montana and designed a family-friendly plan that has been used by 103 families to fight less, avoid upset, and make peace. If both parents participate in this family counseling, we can mediate a final parenting plan and serve as a go-between when conflict erupts. Parents often find when they cannot talk to each other, that they can still talk to their family counselor.

Counseling Children through Art, Play, and Music

Children may not just talk about it. A lot of the healing they need in their life comes more naturally through play, art, or music. Children play beyond words, test different beginnings and endings, and pretend being different characters. Other times they paint, color and sing to share the contents of their heart. Music and art transform and transcend traumatic events, heartbreak, or loss. Each song is created with the right beginning, middle, and end. We are comfortable working with rock, hiphop, western, bluegrass, and any computer generated musical expression.

Anger

Anger management involves the control of aggressive behaviors and not the control of the experience of feeling angry. If the actions your anger brings you to are out-of-control, we can help you develop -- through the use of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy -- the skills you need to be angry and still act appropriately and effectively.

Sexual Intimacy

If sex leaves you feeling empty, if you find it hard to be present during sex, if you are continually engaged in a tug-of-war with your partner about the frequency of sex, we can help you discover or redefine the meaning of sex in your long-term relationship and for yourself. We can assist you in feeling more comfortable in discussing sex with your partner and in expressing yourself sexually in your own unique way. Sex can, for the first time or once again, be the expression of love that you so desire.