Grand Rapids Therapist Counseling & Therapy

Aaron George LMSW, CAADC

Aaron George offers a compassionate approach and more than 12 years of experience as a therapist in Grand Rapids, treating a wide range of conditions in various settings. He twice presented at the Spectrum Health Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine Annual Symposium. Aaron also presented a continuing education training on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) at the Meijer Heart Center. He has extensive training and experience in Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for PTSD, Exposure and Response Prevention for OCD, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for anxiety and depressive disorders. Aaron received his Master of Social Work Degree from Loyola University, Chicago. He utilizes Internal Family Systems (IFS), CBT, and other techniques to help people heal themselves and their parts and live meaningful lives. He treats adults in these and other areas:

• Anxiety Disorders and Phobias Counseling

• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

• Depression Counseling

• Substance Use Disorders

• Emotion Regulation and Anger Management Counseling

• Marriage Counseling and Relationship Therapy

Aaron is a collaborative Grand Rapids counselor who utilizes individuals’ strengths to help them reach their goals and increase meaning in their lives. He welcomes people of all races, genders, orientations, and faiths.

Anxiety Therapy

Anxiety can interfere with enjoyment and functioning. Rather than highlighting your deficits, my counseling approach develops anxiety management skills to help you spend less time struggling with feelings and more time on things that matter. Contact our therapists today if this appeals to you.

Depression Counseling

Depression is often rooted in inaction and unhelpful thoughts. I’ll help you get unstuck by creating adaptive ways of thinking. You may begin to enjoy elevated moods and increased productivity while regaining self-confidence through counseling.

OCD Therapy

OCD involves a need for certainty, creating the illusion that repetitive assurance-seeking will relieve anxiety. My counseling treatment approach, Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP), is effective because it helps you to approach your fears and get back control of your life.

Specific Phobias Therapy

Phobias are exaggerated fears of places, objects, or situations. Avoidance only strengthens the fear and leads to further life disruption. Our therapists help you to approach and view the feared situations accurately, allowing you to participate in the relationships and activities you’ve been missing out on.

PTSD Treatment

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is caused by a disruption in the natural recovery process following a stressful event. Our counseling will help you restructure interfering thoughts and allow the natural recovery process to occur. Please call for counseling if you find this possibility hopeful.

Anger Management

Anger can harm relationships and interfere with life goals. I’ll help you respond effectively to emotional urges, rather than reacting in ways that lead to hurt feelings and missed opportunities. Therapists are available with counseling to help if anger is a problem for you.

Substance Use Counseling

Addiction and substance abuse disorders can destroy lives. I’ll help you identify and overcome destructive impulse urges through a multi-faceted Cognitive-Behavioral approach. Contact us to take a step toward recovery.

Marriage Counseling

Couples benefit from relationship counseling when conflict in the home interferes with shared goals. A key component to my counseling approach, and one that has helped many of my clients, is to establish the relationship as the primary objective, above individual needs.

Social Skill Building

Interpersonal skills involve the ability to meet personal needs while maintaining relationships. You’re not alone if this is a difficult balance to strike. Counseling with a skilled, experienced clinician can significantly enhance your social life and help you feel fulfillment in relationships.

Mood Disorders Counseling

Mood disorders usually involve fairly lengthy, distinct periods of high or low moods. These cycles can lead to unhealthy behaviors and cause serious disruptions in functioning. Please contact us or another behavioral health professional if you are experiencing these concerns, as counseling treatment can help.

Panic Attack Therapy

Panic attacks are sudden experiences of intense anxiety or fear, accompanied by physical sensations, due to a perceived threat. If you experience these symptoms, I can help you to sooth your body and activate the logical area of your brain. This usually leads to increased calm and reduced panic.

Do I need therapy?

In short, you need or would benefit from therapy if you're experiencing thoughts, emotions, or behaviors that are interfering with your life or functioning. To determine whether you might benefit from counseling, consider asking yourself the following questions:

• Is it hard to concentrate on my work, friends, family, or hobbies due to difficult thoughts or emotions?

• Am I struggling to get motivated?

• Am I no longer interested in things I previously enjoyed?

• Do I avoid things that matter to me because of fear or anxiety?

• Do I experience physical symptoms of anxiety such as muscle tension, fatigue, or chest tightness?

• How is my sleep?

• Do I lie awake at night worrying about things?

• Am I experiencing suicidal thoughts?

• Have I been attending to my relationships and keeping up with friends and family?

• Is my work quality suffering due to emotional distress?

• Do I panic when reminded of past stressful past events?

• Do I avoid reminders of past stressful events?

• Is my alcohol, prescription drug, or other substance use taking up a lot of my time?

• Have others commented on my substance use?

• Are you facing difficult life, career, or relationship decisions and can’t decide what to do?

• Would you benefit from an emotional outlet and don’t have a trusted, objective, trained ear that you like to listen to your concerns?

You may benefit from therapy if you answered “yes” to any of those questions. That is not a comprehensive list, as there are many other reasons to seek counseling, but it does provide you with a basic starting point.

What does it mean to be a counselor?

Counseling is the process of guided discovery in which the counselor or therapists assist you to identify goals and take active steps to achieve them. These goals may relate to symptom management but often pertain to functioning or larger values in the areas of relationships, career, or education.

Many times people will come to therapy asking the question,

“WHAT CAN MY THERAPIST DO FOR ME?”

Conversely, I’ve heard many counselors over the years insist that patients alone must learn to “help themselves.” While there are elements of truth in each of these two statements, neither is completely accurate. The truth lies somewhere in between. In reality, therapy is about what can be achieved not individually but together, walking in unison with mutual goals and a clear understanding of how to get there. 

This is why structure is so important in therapy and why I emphasize a clear, yet flexible session structure in which an agenda is set at the outset of each meeting. Without this structure, well-intentioned clients will typically begin discussing whatever problems come to mind, and time runs out without any clear direction or resolution to their problems. Furthermore, session time often expires without addressing a very important issue that was omitted. So, a clear session structure allows for pertinent items to be listed initially and adequate time to identify helpful responses techniques and related practice assignments. 

It is true that a counselor is above all a good listener. This means he must not simply hear their needs but understand them with empathy and unconditional positive regard.

And yet, listening alone is not enough.

An untrained friend can listen to you vent, and this alone may have some benefit. But the simple ventilation of hurts and frustrations without a related action step will simply reinforce helplessness. That’s why my therapy focuses on specific exercises to move toward her values.

Give me a call if you’re interested in getting unstuck and moving forward with counseling.

What can I expect from my first counseling session?

You can expect to be greeted at your first Grand Rapids counseling session with warmth, understanding, and an empathic listening ear. This non-judgmental, unconditional positive regard illustrates the importance of the therapeutic relationship to me. With that important piece addressed, here is some more specific information on the initial phase of counseling:

You will engage in a brief phone screening prior to the first session.

Once both parties agree that counseling is a good fit, intake documents are sent digitally to the client through a secure, private and confidential, electronic health record portal.

You will then review, sign, and securely return the forms to me before the first session.

I review your history in detail so that I have a clear understanding of their concerns and goals prior to the first session. This allows us to focus on your needs in the initial meeting, rather than spending valuable time completing forms. 

Once you arrive at our Grand Rapids MI office (or join digitally for telehealth sessions), I will briefly summarize the objectives of the first session and provide a very brief statement on the private, confidential nature of counseling. You will then be able to share your struggles, concerns, goals, strengths, and values through a flexible but guided format that I will facilitate, allowing us to identify beneficial next steps in therapy. I will offer recommendations near the end of our first session, such as the most helpful therapeutic framework to use, the duration of therapy, and the frequency of sessions. As always, I will seek your input before concluding the meeting.

I deeply value the collaborative nature of this work, so you will be given ample opportunity to share feedback during the initial session and throughout the course of counseling. If this makes sense to you, and you are ready to take the important first step toward counseling, I welcome your call!

Does psychotherapy actually work?

In short, psychotherapy does work. I wouldn’t do what I do, and people wouldn’t continue seeing me and the many other outstanding therapists out there, if it wasn’t helpful. 

Anecdotally, I have seen a great many patients over the years significantly reduce their symptoms of anxiety, depression, phobias, mood disorder, and addictions. More importantly, they experience increased enjoyment and spend more time on things that matter to them: family, relationships, friends, hobbies, work, volunteering, community involvement, and social justice to name a few.

Consider as well the research supporting the efficacy of psychotherapy. Three thousand studies and 300 summaries of studies found a consistent positive impact of psychotherapy. And the average therapy client is 79% better off than individuals who are not receiving treatment. 1

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), my primary therapeutic framework, has performed very well in decades of clinical research. A well-known meta analysis reviewed 269 studies of CBT outcomes and found that the majority of CBT clients outperformed those in comparison groups. The study concluded, “It is clear that the evidence base of CBT is enormous” (Hoffman, et al., 2012).

Of course, the therapists application of specific, evidence-based techniques is very important, but perhaps even more significant is his relationship with the person. That’s why you will be supported and validated, never judged, in therapy with me.

So if you’re looking for the right balance of empathy and evidence, I welcome the privilege of working together.

What is the difference between psychologist and psychotherapist?

To put it in overly simplistic terms, a psychotherapist's role is to understand the client, collaboratively establish treatment goals with her, and assist her in achieving those goals. A psychologist can serve as a psychotherapist as well, but he/she often focuses on testing for conditions such as ADHD or learning disabilities.

Find out more when you read these online:

https://www.findapsychologist.org/the-effectiveness-of-psychotherapy-what-the-research-tells-us/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3584580/

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