What services does Carbajal Counseling & Consulting offer?

At Carbajal Counseling & Consulting, we provide evidence-based outpatient mental health services including anxiety therapy, depression therapy, EMDR therapy, child therapy, teen therapy, family therapy, and marriage counseling. Our goal is to help individuals, couples, and families across all ages find healing and strength.

Who can benefit from therapy at Carbajal Counseling?

We help people of all ages — children, teens, adults, couples, and families — who are facing emotional, behavioral, or relational challenges. Whether you're dealing with stress, life transitions, or deeper trauma, our team is here to support your emotional well-being.

What can I expect during my first therapy session?

In your first session, we will listen to your concerns, gather relevant history, discuss your goals, and begin creating a personalized treatment plan to support your mental health journey. We aim to make the first visit informative and comfortable.

How does anxiety therapy work at Carbajal Counseling?

Our anxiety therapy focuses on structured approaches that help you understand and address anxious thoughts and behaviors. We provide coping strategies, explore triggers, and tailor treatment to your specific needs so you can reduce worry and improve daily functioning.

Can Carbajal Counseling help with depression?

Yes, we offer compassionate support for depression that helps you understand how emotions and thoughts affect your mood, build coping skills, and work toward improved happiness and functioning.

What is EMDR therapy and how does it help?

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an evidence-based therapy that helps individuals process distressing memories and trauma. EMDR works by engaging both cognitive and emotional healing mechanisms, helping people integrate past experiences in a healthier way.

Do you offer therapy for children?

Yes, we provide child therapy that helps young clients express emotions, develop coping tools, and work through challenges like anxiety, behavioral issues, and school concerns in a safe, supportive environment.

What is teen therapy like?

Our teen therapy creates a nonjudgmental space for adolescents to explore stress, identity, peer relationships, and emotional challenges with support tailored to their developmental needs.

How can family therapy help my family?

Family therapy at our practice helps families improve communication, navigate conflict, support children's emotional needs, and rebuild connection. We work collaboratively with families to create healthier relational patterns.

Can therapy help with parent-child conflict?

Yes, family therapy is effective for reducing parent-child conflict by creating shared understanding, teaching communication skills, and involving children in ways that help them feel heard and supported.

Do you provide marriage counseling?

Yes, our marriage counseling services support couples in improving communication, resolving ongoing conflict, rebuilding trust, and strengthening intimacy within the relationship.

What kinds of mental health concerns do your therapists treat?

We treat a broad range of concerns including anxiety, depression, trauma, behavioral struggles, grief and loss, relationship issues, and life transitions. Our therapists are trained to approach each concern with evidence-based strategies.

What makes your therapists qualified?

Our team includes licensed clinicians with diverse training and expertise in trauma, play therapy, EMDR, cognitive behavior therapy, family systems approaches, and more. We match clients with therapists whose strengths align with their needs.

Do you offer therapy in-person and online?

Yes, we provide both in-office therapy at our Kaysville, Syracuse, and Ogden locations and secure telehealth sessions so clients can receive care in the way that works best for them.

Is therapy confidential?

Yes, all therapy at Carbajal Counseling is private and confidential. We follow professional and legal standards to protect your privacy and create a safe space for healing.

How long does therapy typically take?

Duration varies based on personal goals and needs. Some people engage in short-term therapy to address specific issues, while others benefit from ongoing support as they work toward broader growth and resilience.

Can therapy help with trauma or past painful experiences?

Yes, trauma-informed approaches including EMDR and other evidence-based methods help clients process past distressing experiences and reduce their impact on present life and functioning.

How can play therapy help children at Carbajal Counseling?

We use play therapy to help children express and process complex emotions in a natural, nonverbal way. Through guided play, children can build emotional awareness and coping skills in a setting that feels safe and engaging.

How do I schedule an appointment?

You can schedule by calling our office at (801) 989-3488, emailing info@carbajalcounseling.com, or using the contact form on our website to begin your therapy journey.

Do you accept insurance and what are my options?

Rates and insurance acceptance vary by clinician and plan. We recommend contacting our office or your insurance provider to confirm coverage, out-of-network benefits, or self-pay options that suit your situation.

I have a great life and everything I need—my anxiety doesn’t warrant counseling.

If anxiety is compromising your quality of life—regardless of how many support systems you have in place—then you deserve to feel better. A counselor can help you to understand where your anxiety comes from and provide you with lifelong skills for managing its impact on you. There is no reason to suffer in silence; therapy can be a great resource for you.

I don’t understand how play therapy will help with my child’s anxiety.

Because children express themselves primarily through play, play therapy is a useful tool in helping children to understand, process, and verbalize their emotions. Your child’s therapist will incorporate play therapy into their anxiety treatment in a way that will not only help them to understand your child’s fears but will also give them an opportunity to model healthy coping behaviors for your child. This evidence-based approach has been highly successful at targeting mental health issues in younger populations. And we have seen our child clients who struggle with anxiety make great strides in counseling using this modality.

Why can’t I just take medication for my anxiety?

Though medication can be a quick fix for alleviating symptoms of anxiety, it doesn’t do anything to treat the core issue of the problem. A counselor, on the other hand, can give you tangible, lasting skills that will promote positive change in your life so that anxiety doesn’t create so many setbacks. Furthermore, we know from research that psychotherapy is more effective than medication when it comes to treatment for anxiety.

DEPRESSION THERAPY

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DOES THE BLACK CLOUD OF DEPRESSION FOLLOW YOU OR YOUR LOVED ONE?

Does it feel like a weight has settled over your life that you can’t quite name or shake? Have the things that used to bring you joy, a hobby, a friendship, a Sunday morning, started to feel flat or like too much effort? Is it becoming harder to get out of bed, answer a text, or keep up with the responsibilities in front of you?

You may find that you’re going through the motions of your day without really feeling present in any of it. Perhaps you’ve noticed changes in your sleep or appetite, a persistent fatigue that rest doesn’t seem to touch, or a quiet sense that you’re not enough, no matter how much you accomplish. For some, depression shows up less as sadness and more as irritability, numbness, or a short fuse with the people you love most.

It could also be that you’re watching someone close to you go through this, a spouse, a parent, a friend, and feeling helpless as you try to reach them. Whatever brought you here, living under this kind of heaviness makes even ordinary days feel like an uphill climb. Yet with the right support through therapy, it’s possible to understand what’s happening beneath the surface and find your way back to feeling like yourself.

GRATITUDE CULTURE CAN MAKE DEPRESSION FEEL LIKE A PERSONAL FAILURE

Depression develops for many reasons, from genetic predisposition and brain chemistry to grief, chronic stress, or a significant life transition. It’s rarely just one thing, and it’s almost never a reflection of a person’s character or effort. Still, in a community like ours, where gratitude, faith, and family closeness are so deeply valued, depression can carry an added layer of confusion and shame.

When you have a supportive family, a strong community, and a life that looks good on paper, it can feel almost forbidden to admit that you’re struggling. There’s an unspoken message that if you have so much to be thankful for, you have no right to feel this low, and that message can turn a medical and emotional experience into something that feels like a personal or even spiritual failing. This is especially painful for people of faith who already carry a sincere desire to feel grateful and are left wondering why gratitude alone hasn’t been enough to lift the fog.

Comparison doesn’t help. Watching neighbors, siblings, or friends post their highlight reels, missions completed, engagements announced, families growing, can deepen the sense that everyone else has figured out something you haven’t. And Utah’s long winter inversions, with weeks of gray skies and limited sunlight, add a very real physical layer on top of all of this for many people, regardless of what else is going on in their lives.

None of this means depression is something to push through quietly or wait out on your own. It means depression is often more layered than people expect, shaped by biology, environment, and community all at once. Naming it clearly, without shame, is often the first real step toward feeling lighter again.

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THERAPEUTIC TREATMENT CAN HELP YOU UNDERSTAND AND RESOLVE YOUR DEPRESSION

Depression is one of the most common mental health conditions in the country. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that millions of American adults experience at least one major depressive episode in a given year, and depression affects children and teens as well, not just adults.1 Therapy offers a space to explore what’s underneath your specific experience of depression, something that can be difficult to fully unpack with the friends and family closest to you, however supportive they may be.

Once matched with a therapist at Carbajal Counseling, you’ll be invited to an initial session covering your history, your current symptoms, and any prior experience with therapy or medication. As we get to know you, we’ll work to understand the biological, emotional, and environmental threads that may be feeding your depression, since it’s rarely tied to just one cause.

From there, we draw on approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to identify and shift the thought patterns that keep depression entrenched, and Behavioral Activation, which focuses on gradually rebuilding engagement with the people and activities depression has caused you to withdraw from. For depression connected to past trauma or significant life events, we may incorporate EMDR therapy, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) can help when depression feels tied to a harsh inner critic or conflicting parts of yourself. For children struggling with depression, we incorporate play therapy, allowing them to express feelings they don’t yet have words for. Research also shows that psychotherapy is often an effective first-line treatment for depression, and when paired with medication for more moderate to severe cases, the combination tends to produce better outcomes than either approach alone.2

Sadness is a normal part of being human, but when it settles in and refuses to lift, that’s a sign it deserves real attention, not just patience. We’ve seen many clients move from feeling stuck and hopeless to feeling engaged with their own lives again, and your therapist can help you get there at a pace that makes sense for you.

Maybe you’re ready to see a counselor for your depression, but you still have some questions…

I have a good life and a lot to be grateful for; my sadness doesn't warrant counseling.

Gratitude and depression can coexist, and one doesn’t cancel out the other. If low mood, hopelessness, or a loss of interest in your life has lasted more than a couple of weeks, that’s reason enough to talk to someone, regardless of how much you have going for you on paper. A counselor can help you understand where the depression comes from and give you tools to manage it for the long term.

Won't talking about my feelings just make me feel worse?

It’s a common worry, and early sessions can feel uncomfortable as you start naming things you’ve been avoiding. Most people find that this discomfort is temporary and that having a place to actually process what you’re carrying, rather than holding it alone, brings real relief fairly quickly.

Can therapy really help if I'm already taking medication?

Yes. Medication can help stabilize symptoms, but it doesn’t teach you new ways of thinking or coping, which is where therapy comes in. Many of our clients use both together, and research consistently shows that combining medication with therapy often produces better outcomes than either one alone.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO CARRY THIS WEIGHT ALONE

If depression has been following you or someone you love, depression therapy at Carbajal Counseling can help you find your way back to feeling like yourself.

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You don’t have to face your mental health concerns alone. Whether you're struggling as a couple, navigating parenting, or just want to reconnect, we’re ready to support your journey.

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