415-419-3560 (USA)
What will our work look like?
My work with you may take a number of different forms depending upon our agreements about what will most suit your needs: I offer psychotherapy, coaching, spiritual guidance and direction. Which ever direction our work takes the most important aspect is that we work in a partnership in your healing, growth and fullfilment.
Psychotherapy
First and foremost my work with you is informed by my training and background in mind body wisdom:
I work from the stand point that our minds and bodies are connected. I see that any illness in our bodies is also connected to our thoughts and emotions. The good news about this is that often times the physical symptoms that we might be experience in our bodies can often change as we deal with the way that we think about ourselves and our lives.
Although our stories may be similar I know that every client who walks into my office is unique- and needs a very personal and particular kind of support. Our work together will be based upon what you need- In other words when we first meet you and I will take the first session to discover with you what is most important for you:
- What's bringing you to see me now? Did something just happen in your life?
- What is it that you would like to be able to change?
- How would you like your relationships, your thoughts, your life, your work to be different?
- What are the symptoms that you are having: anxiety, depression, anger, apathy, headaches, fatigue, digestive problems, stuck relationships, inability to move on, or make decesions....
The most important aspect to how I work with all my clients is to form a good strong healing partnership with you-
It is the relationship between us that will provide us with the way into helping support you with the changes that you want to make. You know how you feel when you are with someone that you can be completely yourself with, where you feel no fear of judgment? Well I see it as my job to help create this with you.
I have extensive experience and success in working with individuals, couples, and groups and I am happy to work with you in any of the following areas of concern:
- Womens life cycle issues - pregnancy, new mother hood, peri-menopause, infertility, adoption
- Addictions of all kind and issues related to successful Recovery
- Issues of Transition- Ex-pat concerns- adjusting to new environments.
- Body image issues
- Stress and Anxiety
- Early childhood trauma
- Phobias (excessive fear)
- Depression and Grief
- Insomnia
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (childhood abuse)
- Isolation and Loneliness
- Relationship Issues
- Parenting Issues (divorce, step-family)
- Difficulty with change
- Life visioning/purpose building,
- Life and Relationship Coaching
I have been very lucky and fortunate to receive much excellent training in a number of modalities from which I will draw when working with you. I combine these approaches with my own personality and style to create an eclectic and unique psychotherapy practice. No one modality works for everyone- and depending upon what you are working on different approaches can be helpful:
The following is a listing of some of the approaches that maybe useful in our work together:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy- recognizes that how we think affects how we feel, and act in our lives- the beliefs that we have about ourselves directly affect our health and wellness. A corner stone of my work is that as we work to change core beliefs that no longer work for us our lives can also change!
Hakomi Somatic Therapy - Recognizes that the way that we were raised as children how we were treated, how we came to understand the world us became the template from which we look at the world as adults. Hakomi has many wonderful ways of helping us to gently access and transform some of our most core beliefs that are causing us distress in our adult lives. for more info click here
Psychodyanmic- in general terms I help clients to look at how their past maybe informing their present. How old experiences may still be playing themselves out in the present moment.
Existential- this approach is very useful in that it helps you to focus on the here and now - what is actually happening in this moment that is not about the past. In this way we can practice new behaviors in the moment and have a new experience rather than simply talking about the past.
Expressive Arts- Sometimes our verbal language is very limiting. Since the beginning of human culture we have used images, sounds, symbols and art as a way to express our hopes, dreams, fears and to be able to communicate with one another. In our work we may sometimes use art, drama, movement- or other expressive mediums to help explore and better understand your issues. Often times the process of engaging with the arts will itself provide relief, and the possibility of change and transformation. Awakening to the innate creativity within yourself, you are often able to bring the wisdom of a deeper self into the light of day. Even when one is dealing with painful or frightening issues, the experience of expressing oneself through a creative process can provide fresh perspectives and a sense of hope and empowerment.
Areas of Special Training
Addictions and Chemical Dependency
I have for the last ten years specialized in working with all kinds of Addictions, Chemical Dependency and Issues of Recovery particularly with women. I have developed an innovative and comprehensive way of working with people who are in all stages of addiction and recovery from within my private practice- this involves the development of a comprehensive treatment plan with clients and often involves family, friends and loved ones. Harm Reduction means that we work together to find manageable and realistic recovery goals that can work for you. The goal is always towards lessening self harm..and increasing self regulation through self care.
Trauma
Addiction and trauma more often than not go hand in hand. Addictions are often a valiant attempt that we make to regulate a nervous system that is imbalanced due to some kind of traumatic experience. To treat addiction without addressing the possibility of trauma is to overlook a major underlying cause of addiction. My approach is to aid you as my client in understanding the connection between trauma and your addictions. Together we co-create inspiring and innovative ways of you reminding sober by looking very clearly at what you were using drugs/alcohol or other self harming behaviors to do. What state are YOU trying to reach. In deepening an understanding of the state you are trying to reach gives us so much more ability to work successfully on your recovery.
Creative Arts Therapy
There are many ways to work - and the more embodied ..the more powerful. I have been an actor, a dancer, and a huge fan of all things creative since my early years. It is the way that I came to be a Psychotherapist in the first place. It is my belief and experience that when we start to use the arts we start to engage with our stuck patterns in a new and different way. Through visual art, drama, dance, music...any medium that can give us expression ,we can experience new parts of our selves, and often times resolve internal issues. Being able to find new ways to approach "old" problems is invaluable. Moving away from just talking about an event, to having a new experience is a powerful way to see things change both inside you, in your relationships and int he world around you.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is "paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non judgmentally." (Jon Kabat Zinn)
A mindful approach in psychotherapy can help clients to notice and appreciate each moment as it happens, to regulate emotion, and to expand awareness and aliveness. The mindfulness-based approaches we use aim to help our clients to reduce anxiety and depression, to become more interpersonally effective, and to reduce the impact of stress. Careful observation of thoughts, emotions, behaviors and sensations helps to move the brain towards new, preferred patterns. Mindfulness skills and concepts have long been used in an effort to alleviate suffering and to lessen the sting of life's difficulties, especially those that may be self-imposed.
Hakomi
"Hakomi is the absolute cutting edge of modern therapeutic technique."
John Bradshaw, author of Bradshaw on The Family
"Hakomi is an excellent system for learning key emotional intelligence skills"
Daniel Goleman, author of the bestseller Emotional Intelligence
"Hakomi presents some astounding methods for getting to core material. It is well grounded in theory and revolutionary in its results."
Association of Humanistic Psychology Newsletter
"A visionary contribution in bringing mindfulness to our therapeutic community."
Daniel Siegel, M.D., author of The Developing Mind and The Mindful
Hakomi Experiential Psychotherapy is a body-centered, somatic psychotherapy. It recognizes the oneness in body and mind and actively includes awareness of one’s physical experience, such as breathing, posture, and movements, as a doorway into the psyche. The body becomes a resource and ally for increased self-awareness.
The therapeutic relationship is an essential component of Hakomi. The process unfolds with a deep, authentic, and highly attuned connection between therapist and client. This openhearted presence creates a quality of contact that allows mind, body, and spirit to feel safe in exploring vulnerabilities and moving toward wholeness.
Through the principles of: mindfulness, compassion, trust in the innate desire for wholeness, and the connection between all Beings, clients are able to explore core material, transform limiting beliefs, and experience aliveness.
Therapy is first about discovering. It's about who you are and about what your deepest emotional attitudes are. It's not just about who you think you are. It's not opinion. It's not something you can know with the intellect. It's about who you are in the very heart of yourself. That's the flavor of psychotherapy--discovering yourself, discovering your real attitudes toward the most important pieces of your life. It takes courage to look at yourself. It takes a real desire to know and a willingness to accept whatever is there. It helps to be playful too. At some point, you realize that the things you thought you were stuck with, your character traits, are changeable. You can be free of them. It helps if you don't take these parts of yourself too seriously. Courage, a desire to know and be free, and playfulness--these are necessary. The journey is from "Who are you?" to "Who you are!" At the end you have consistency and vision. You know your needs and direction. You can say, "This I will do and this I won't!". You have resolved many conflicts in which one part of you wants something and another part is against it. It's not a final place you reach. The journey itself becomes a way of life. If it ends at all, it ends in enlightenment. The self one is interested in is no longer the individual ego, but the unbounded self of the spirit. Because, finally, that is who you are.
Core Material
Hakomi helps people change "core material." Core material is composed of memories, images, beliefs, neural patterns, and deeply held emotional dispositions. This material shapes the styles, habits, behaviors, perceptions, physical postures and attitudes which define us as individuals. Our responses to the major themes of life--safety, belonging, support, power, freedom, responsibility, appreciation, sexuality, spirituality, etc.--are all organized by our core material.
Some of this core material supports our being who we wish to be, while some of it--learned in response to difficult situations--continues to limit us. Hakomi allows the client to distinguish between the two, and to modify willingly any material that restricts his or her wholeness.
The Method
In pursuing this material, the Method follows a certain general outline. First, we work to build a therapist/client relationship which maximizes safety, respect, and the cooperation of the unconscious. With a good working relationship established, we then help the client focus on and study how his or her core material shapes personal experience.
To permit this study, we establish and use a distinct state of consciousness called Mindfulness. Mindfulness is characterized by relaxed volition, a gentle and sustained inward focus of attention, heightened sensitivity, freedom from judgment and effort, and the ability to notice and name the contents of consciousness.
The heart of the Method is the precise study of the client's present felt experiences, as a way to discover personal organizing material. These experiences are either naturally occurring, or deliberately and gently evoked by having the client participate in carefully designed "experiments". These might be hearing a statement about a key theme, or having the client change his or her physical position. It might be asking him or her to consider a certain possibility, or making a certain gesture. Through the "experiment", the client is invited to allow and carefully notice whatever responses happen inside of them, and ultimately to feel within their being the core factors that shape such responses. Once arrived at in this felt sense, the core material can be studied, evaluated, and transformed.
The basic method, then, is this: 1) to establish a relationship in which it is safe for the client to become aware; 2) to notice or evoke experiences that lead to the discovery of organizing core material; and 3) to seek healing changes in the core material. All else that we do is in support of this primary process.
