What I Do
and Believe
What I Do
and Believe
As a psychotherapist for more than 24 years, I continually search for techniques that help me get to the root of emotional, mental or physical problems. Fortunately, this field has grown and changed a lot since I first started. There are new techniques that integrate both mind and body. These techniques go beyond the conscious mind to break the chains of behavioral, emotional, and physical patterns that keep people stuck.
I believe everything can be healed. My perspective is that each one of us has the power to heal ourselves, but since most of our injury happens in and from relationship, we have to heal through relationship. The intuition to desire better, and the fact that our brains are malleable, means that we can heal.
Most learning is stored in implicit memory. That means it operates outside of our consciousness. I work from an attachment lens to help each person see deeper into themselves, what is holding them back.
Many times, we have to find the root of the belief to make what is implicit learning, explicit. I am trained in the following techniques that do this, and each can be used together to achieve the best effect.
I am a certified EFT or Emotionally Focused Therapist for couples, which means I help couples make sense of the negative patterns that can often develop when there isn't sufficient ability to reach for each other, and create a safe connection. I am also trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS) with Richard Schwartz, which works with internal parts of the self. These parts often end up "running the show," and stopping us from achieving or even stop us from connecting with other people in a healthy way. I am trained in both levels of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). Basically EMDR is bilateral brain stimulation which helps reprocess memory, how it is stored, and the meaning made from it (read more on the page titled EMDR and EFT). I also treat with EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique - or tapping). This technique changes the stuck energy around an issue, thereby facilitating the release and the ability to make a new belief at an unconscious level. It is good for trauma or habits, or feeling upset.
I have an undergraduate degree (B.A.) from UCSB (Santa Barbara, CA) in psychology, and a graduate degree (M.A.) from National University (Sacramento, CA) in counseling psychology. These many modalities of training often cross over into each other and I feel adept as using a number of them in any one session. For more information on EFT for couples by Sue Johnson, Ph.D. (Emotionally Focused Therapy), see the official website iceeft.com.