You Just Need To Get Started
PSYCHOTHERAPY...THE TALKING CURE. For over 25 years Dr. Haxton has been helping her patients tell their stories and trace their paths. Through a safe and nonjudgmental professional connection, her patients feel unburdened, develop insight, and know that they are not alone in facing their problems. Dr. Haxton treats patients beginning in the late teen years. Dr. Haxton works with male, female, and LGBTQ people. Working together she will help you identify thoughts and feelings arising from past formative life experience as well as current issues and conflicts. With you, she will plan strategies for improved interpersonal function and enhanced and stable mood.
Women often feel more comfortable in a relationship with a woman doctor who truly understands the particular difficulties of their lives. Many women struggle with the need to juggle multiple roles. They may be working full-time outside the home, while at the same time carrying a second full-time job of mother, wife, cook, housekeeper, and CEO of the family! They may wonder if they are present enough for their children. They may find themselves exhausted and irritable with the people they love the most. They may become anxious or depressed.
People often feel embarrassed and reluctant to talk about their symptoms and behaviors and are relieved to learn that many others suffer in similar ways. Dr. Haxton helps patients to change the patterns of thought and behavior that disrupt relationships, cause anger and shame, and lead to humiliation, pain, instability, low mood, and anxiety.
Anxiety and depression are biologically determined illnesses but may be initiated or exacerbated by life events and are thus amenable to psychotherapy. Understanding the triggers can help patients establish control over their anxiety. Similarly, sleep disorders, eating disorders, post-partum disorders. body dysmorphic disorders, self-destructive or injurious behaviors, weight disorders, OCD and panic disorders, somatoform disorders and pain syndromes are often helped by psychotherapy. Personality Disorders, such as Borderline Personality Disorder, are often best treated with psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy may be helpful to individuals struggling with issues related to gender and sexual orientation. It may be helpful to patients with substance abuse disorders or addiction.
In partnering with Dr. Haxton, patients can look forward to their future with a more profound understanding of themselves, with better skill in managing their interpersonal relationships and with enhanced purpose and effectiveness in meeting their life goals.
PSYCHOTHERAPY APPROACH
Dr. Haxton treats a wide array of acute and chronic psychiatric illness. Treatment plans are individualized to meet your particular needs.
In addition to talking therapy and medication, the treatment may include cognitive behavioral (CBT) interventions. Dr. Haxton often incorporates Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) into her work with patients, particularly those suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder.
Helping patients to adopt healthy lifestyle changes is a part of Dr. Haxton's approach. She provides education and guidance regarding diet, sleep, exercise, routine medical care, and management of chronic psychiatric illness. Appropriate recommendations will be incorporated into your care. Return of symptoms can often be prevented or mitigated with timely intervention.
Meditation is a skill that can help patients experience more control over their feelings, and feel calmer and less anxious. Dr. Haxton can help you incorporate regular meditation practice into your life.
Psychotherapy ranges from supportive, which means helping the individual manage the stressors and obstacles of everyday life, to a more reflective process. This reflective, insight-oriented type of therapy is intended to help patients look inward to identify maladaptive patterns in their thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Dr. Haxton may help you with issues related to parent-child conflict, school adjustment, marriage and relationship difficulties, stage of life adaptation, and grief.
Through understanding comes insight. Through insight comes change.
PSYCHOTHERAPY SESSIONS
INITIAL EVALUATION
The first meeting usually consists of two 50-minute sessions back-to-back. This large block of time allows Dr. Haxton to thoroughly explore your reason for seeking treatment, obtain your full medical and psychiatric history, and to establish treatment goals and plans.
With teenagers or young adults, Dr. Haxton may conduct this initial consultation alone with the parents in order to obtain all relevant medical, developmental, family and social history.
SESSIONS
Dr. Haxton sees all patients for full sessions and does not do "medication management" only. Most of her patients are not in therapy elsewhere, but if someone comes to the practice already in a productive psychotherapy relationship with another therapist, this is certainly supported. Dr. Haxton does not work in a supervisory capacity with non-M.D. therapists but welcomes the opportunity for a collegial relationship.
Patients are seen for 50-minute sessions on a schedule ranging from twice weekly to every 3-4 months. Maintaining a close therapeutic connection with Dr. Haxton is essential for the work of psychotherapy, and also facilitates recognition of early signs of recurrence or relapse and allows for a rapid response before a crisis occurs. Patients on controlled substances are seen at least monthly. Teenagers and young adults are seen no less than monthly, as well. A lot can change in the life of a teenager in a few weeks!
SPECIAL PSYCHOTHERAPY SERVICES
BREAST CANCER AND HIGH-RISK WOMEN
Dr. Haxton provides support and assistance in treatment planning for high-risk women and women diagnosed with breast cancer, as well as ongoing care as their treatment ensues and progresses.
LYMPHEDEMA AND COMPLICATIONS OF BREAST CANCER TREATMENT
Dr. Haxton provides the unique service of pre-radiation and pre-surgical guidance for prevention of lymphedema. She can help manage the challenges of early intervention as well as ongoing care. Lymphedema is a poorly understood but frequent complication of breast cancer treatment. It is a debilitating, disabling and disfiguring condition. Women often feel that the long-term impairment from this condition is worse than the treatment that caused it. Lymphedema is not curable, but it is preventable and treatable.
LACTATION CONSULTATION AND OTHER NEWBORN CARE
Caring for a new baby is not necessarily intuitive. Breastfeeding is a learned skill and Dr. Haxton can help.
DR. HAXTON HAS AN INTEGRATIVE AND HOLISTIC APPROACH TO MENTAL HEALTH AND BELIEVES THAT A HEALTHY DIET, GOOD SLEEP AND REGULAR EXERCISE ARE IMPORTANT CORNERSTONES OF YOUR CARE.
