Allied Mental Health Services, PLLC

Discover the power of your unconscious mind. Learn to really be in control of you. You can let go of over worrying, chronic pain, procrastinating, fears, destructive anger, inhibitions, poor concentration, forgetfulness, and non-organic infertility. You can lose weight, stop smoking and get rid of migraine and stress headaches forever. You can restore sexual desire - without medication. Safely change unwanted habits, bad attitudes, negative thoughts, and unfulfilling relationships. If stress is causing premature baldness - you can stop it. Whatever stress is doing to you - take back the control and stop it. Why settle for pain, discomfort and health risks?

Stress is a natural and immediate reaction to change. Even if the change is for the better, it still produces stress. Most of the time we are able to cope with small amounts of stress naturally by exercising, socializing, leaning on our support network, or by engaging in hobbies, meditation and prayer. Unfortunately, daily stress often comes from a myriad of sources including work, spouses, ex-spouses, children, family, finances, medical conditions, and peers. In response to multiple stressors, our resistance diminishes and we are less able to cope. When this occurs stress can manifest itself in many ways, both Psychologically and Physiologically.

When we are able to diminish our reactions to stress, we can function closer to our full potential. It gives us a general sense of well-being and our confidence increases. Through the use of specific relaxation techniques and guided imagery people can use their imagination to increase internal control and see themselves successfully achieving goals and aspirations. We then naturally move to fulfill our own positive expectations.

Relationships are 90% emotional and 10% attitude. Successful relationships are the result of learning and practice, not luck. Couples in trouble are typically the result of one of three factors: 1) An immediate or recent event is so horrendous or awful an enormous split in the relationship occurs. 2) One or both of the partners brought into the relationship old emotional wounds, unresolved shame or rigidly held fantasies in direct conflict with reality, or 3) No previous knowledge of how to build a successful, healthy, intimate and loving relationship.

The first factor includes events like extramarital affairs, the death of a child, loss of a career, substantial life style change, victimization by physical or sexual assault, catastrophic body changes due to injury or sudden illness.

The second factor includes situations such as previous unhealed abusive adult relationships, past love relationships that are still active, alcohol and other drug abuse habits, compulsive gambling or inappropriate sexual behavior, and beliefs closely resembling the story lines of Cinderella and Pollyanna.

The third factor is the result of roll modeling. This is the most powerful and lasting way students learn. Children are like sponges absorbing what they see: the good, the bad and the ugly. By not seeing parents in a consistent loving relationship, they have no modeled foundation on which to build healthy attitudes and functional expectations for their own adult love relationships. They are left to learn by trial-and-error, maybe even saying they will never do the things they saw growing up. Unfortunately, the absence of positive knowledge results in a lack of confidence and reactive interactions.

When there is no consistency between what a parent says and what the parent does, the child will focus attention on the doing. It is human nature to trust our eyes more than our ears. That's why parental advice is usually unheeded. If you want your children to learn about healthy adult relationships, show them your healthy relationship.

Can adults learn better ways of relating rather than just reacting to the other? Absolutely. Can people with histories of bad love relationships change and have good relationships? Yes.

A wise sage once lamented, "If you're dead in the head, you're dead in the bed". People often forget that the mind is the most powerful sexual organ in the body. The vast majority of sexual dysfunction is not due to fault with the sexual parts of the body; rather from erroneous activity or inactivity occurring above the neck.

Physical injury and genetic makeup directly affects sexual development and functioning. However, the number of successfully treated patients for stress induced problems versus those successfully treated for biologically caused problems is astronomically greater.

The reproductive and endocrine systems of the body are directly affected by stress, depression, anxiety, worry, fear and anger, including many other feelings connected to past experience and memory. Also many of our feelings and memories are not consciously known. This is why hypnotherapy in combination with the talking and behavioral approaches of psychotherapy can be extremely effective. The goal of the therapy is to restore you to full control of your body. No medications are used. In fact, as success becomes established, clients previously taking medications are usually able to stop taking them.

By helping people remove fears, anxiety and negative thinking we become empowered to establish positive expectations and passion for using our own creativity, intuition and desire to love and be loved. Dr. Lerman specializes in helping people overcome diminished sexual interest, lack of physical responsiveness, performance and technique inhibitions, premature ejaculation, negative sexual attitudes and habits, and non-organic infertility.

Similar to Individual Psychotherapy, this is a type of “talking therapy.” Family therapy refers to a unit of parents and children in any combination. It can include extended family members, as well as blended family members. The focus is usually on some aspect that is creating major disruption or negative influence on the family. Often times the targeted aspect is a member of the family, usually a child or adolescent, whose behavior is triggering conflicts beyond the parent or parents’ ability to manage. Sometimes the aspect may be the result of a death in the family or the impending death of a terminally ill family member.

The family in crisis is often the initiating signal for a referral to family therapy. This can be the result of alcohol or drug abuse, a parent losing his or her job, a runaway or kidnapping of a child, the arrest or imprisonment of a family member, or any traumatic event like a natural disaster having a direct impact on the family.

The goal of family therapy is the resolution of the conflict. The process of resolution often involves some degree of emotional healing and new learning for each family member.