My work with clients goes well beyond traditional “talk therapy.” I utilize a range of powerful approaches that help clients resolve issues quickly and achieve deep and lasting change. I use the following methods along with traditional talk therapy to create a process uniquely suited to each client's needs.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Our minds can sometimes be our own worst enemies – telling “stories” that make our lives much harder than they need to be. CBT is a general term for a range of modalities that help individuals challenge their beliefs and replace thoughts that might be getting them into trouble -- such as over-focusing on negatives or “catastrophizing" – with more realistic, accurate thoughts that reduce emotional distress and prevent the onset of harmful behaviors. CBT works relatively quickly and can be very empowering for clients whose lives were previously dominated by self-defeating thinking. I like to think of CBT as, “Change your mind. Change your life.”
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): Developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro and shown to be highly effective for treating trauma, EMDR helps clients deal directly and safely with painful memories or traumas that are holding them back. EMDR utilizes eye movements or other forms of rhythmical stimulation in ways that activate the brain’s information processing system. With EMDR therapy it is unnecessary to delve into decades-old psychological material; instead, by stimulating the brain’s “information processor” people can quickly eliminate the distress related to both current and past experiences and allow their own innate power, clarity, and joy to emerge.
Internal Family Systems (IFS): Developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, IFS is a psychotherapeutic modality that helps clients connect to their deepest wisdom, compassion, and creativity. Through the IFS process, clients discover a multitude of “parts” within their psyches – such as inner critics, needy child parts, or driven “workaholic” parts – that can take over and make their lives unworkable. By working with these parts and helping them step back, clients access their highest “Self” so they can approach anything life hands them with wisdom and clarity.
Accelerated Experiential Depth Psychotherapy (AEDP): Developed by Dr. Diana Fosha, AEDP is a transformational modality that helps clients access a core state of calm, clarity, confidence and true self being. Through the process, clients are empowered to unlock their own innate capacity for self-healing and self-righting, which they can apply in all aspects of their lives.
Enneagram Theory: Building on centuries-old wisdom and concepts, the Ennegream is a tool for understanding how each personality type has a blind spot that drives us into patterned ways of feeling, thinking and behaving. Interpreting our personality type and helping us learn how to see our limiting patterns aids us in breaking out of them and enables us to act more freely and create a new way of being.
Somatic Practices: Somatic Practices are body-oriented approaches that can include relaxation, meditation, breathing, movement or other techniques to promote a deeper physical awareness and expand one's capacity to feel and express emotions. Clients often feel increased awareness, peace and clarity as part of this therapy.
Guided Imagery: Guided Imagery helps one explore the psyche through his or her own imagination. A state of deep relaxation is created by imagining all the details of a safe, comfortable place, providing an inner calm that allows for better access to one's own innate wisdom. Greater control of one's emotions and thought processes can be accessed, helping improve health and attitude and creating an overall sense of well-being.
Hypnotherapy: Hypnotherapy combines guided relaxation and intense concentration to bring clients to a heightened state of awareness. Clients remain fully lucid and in control during a hypnotherapy session while accessing a deeper level of clarity than is possible through regular talk therapy. In this heightened state of awareness clients often discover past experiences that are the root of current problems, release energy from past traumas, provide healing for their wounded “inner children,” and release negative beliefs that are sabotaging their current lives.
Meditation: Meditation facilitates a state of being aware. When the mind is focusing on one thing – whether it's the breath or birdsong – and is free from other distractions, a meditative state has been accomplished. This state promotes deep relaxation and a clarity of mind from which to better explore the self.
Addiction Counseling: Specialized addiction counseling helps address the factors that underlie addiction and set off relapse. For clients struggling with addiction, I help identify the people, behaviors or substances that are blocking them from tackling their deeper issues and moving forward. This work may also include referral to resources outside of therapy.
