My Therapeutic Approach
To help my clients with the diverse concerns and problems they bring to therapy, my work reflects attachment, trauma, and psychodynamic perspectives. Our psychological problems manifest on a number of levels: our thoughts, feelings, behaviors and body states, which is why a multi-faceted approach is most effective to facilitate change. I honor my clients’ conscious thoughts, perspectives, and ideas about their presenting issues and also explore feelings, symptoms, and body sensations that are less conscious, confusing and often painful, but may be clues to these problems. My clients are often perplexed by habits and behaviors they assumed are just “who they are”, when in fact they may be specific parts of themselves reacting to long forgotten events because of a challenge in the present.
A Body and Mind Focus
Since I believe in a whole-person approach and consider mind and body simultaneously, my work also involves a holistic consideration of my clients’ current life situations. If my clients wish, I will collaborate with them to explore their physical, nutritional, and general health as well as their current relationships and family structure to find areas of resilience as well as those that could be strengthened.
I also have found that active involvement on my clients’ part helps the therapeutic process be most successful. This can include working between sessions on what we focus on in session. While the therapeutic process and relationship can alter the way the brain and nervous system function, spending more time outside of therapy in “new ways of being” has helped my clients on their path toward increased wellness.
The chief treatment modalities I use to help clients include:
- Dynamic, insight oriented.
- Exploring attachment patterns in family of origin.
- EMDR for resourcing and processing trauma, loss, or other painful experiences.
- Principles of sensorimotor psychotherapy.
- Principles of internal family systems.
- Mindfulness.
- Sand tray therapy.
- Stress reduction.
- Psychoeducation
- Eriksonian Hypnosis
In addition, I collaborate with psychiatrists and psychopharmacologists when my clients are taking medication, and may suggest that they seek a consultation when they are experiencing increased anxiety, depression, or other symptoms. While medication may at times be very helpful for a client’s well-being, it may also provide a “floor”, if needed, to support people in psychotherapy that may be particularly painful, especially trauma-focused work.