ABOUT THERAPY
Therapy is meant to create new experiences.
People cope with and adapt to such experiences differently, and to the best of their ability. Thus, therapy must be based around what a person actually needs. There is no typical therapy; going to therapy, is by definition, kind of atypical – therapy is something we do when we need help, and are having a hard time. I attend to how people process experiences physically, emotionally, spiritually, and cognitively.
In addition to trauma, I also specialize in offering relief from eating disorders, self-harm, anxiety, and depression.
PHILOSOPHY
A therapist has three responsibilities:
to be truthful, nonjudgmental, and skillful.
TRUTHFULNESS IS MY PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITY.
The truth is kind and compassionate (even if we don’t like it, and wish it otherwise). The term ‘the brutal truth’ is kind of a misnomer – if our intention is to be brutal, it is unlikely we are really being truthful.
BEING NON-JUDGEMENTAL
– and this word gets thrown around a lot –
means that every effect has a good and congruent cause.
LEARNING IS GREAT;
LISTENING AND BEING HELPFUL IS BETTER.
Being helpful is providing the tools and practices that bring relief.
Trauma
A traumatic experience is any in which our ability to effectively cope is overwhelmed – we needed to do something, and could not.
Complex Trauma
Complex trauma is when traumatic experience has been normal rather than abnormal. Complex Trauma is most common for people who were abused, neglected, or had extreme experiences throughout childhood.
EMDR Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing
A very specific type of therapy to help people suffering symptoms of PTSD and difficult experiences. With EMDR, the patient adaptively reorganizes their experiences in an accelerated manner. http://www.emdr.com
Somatic & Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
Body-oriented therapies focus on integrating unresolved responses to trauma and other difficult experiences through physical, sensorimotor, and emotional experience, in addition to talking. This approach draws upon the natural intelligence present in our body and emotional mind to direct healing. Somatic approaches are often immensely helpful for people with histories of trauma, and/or feel stuck in traditional talk therapy.
Mindfulness & Meditation Practice
Mindfulness is a mental factor in which we are aware of ‘thoughts as thoughts, feelings as feelings, our body as a body, and our intentions as intentions’, and do not forget this. Meditation is more than a calming practice; it is the training of our mind to associate with and increase what is virtuous and excellent in ourselves..
Dissociation
Dissociation is a broadly used term. It specifically refers to the nervous system’s ability to disconnect itself from aspects of experience. With trauma survivors, this can encompass experiences ranging from numbness, feeling disconnected, feeling frozen, inexplicable physical experiences, body memories (flashbacks experienced mostly physically), amnesia, to fragmenting aspects of the personality, like in Dissociative Identity Disorder. Simply, dissociation is a way in which our body and mind respond to a pain we cannot affect. When our mind cannot affect that pain, it disconnects the affected part from our consciousness. Different people experience dissociation differently.