I believe that the key ingredient to a successful therapeutic journey is the therapeutic relationship. My style of working is to collaborate with my clients in our sessions and to create an empathic and supportive environment. You are the guide, you carry the agency, I accompany you on the journey, I can help you to feel safety, but the answers are within you, and is for us together to help in this process of discovery as a team. Confrontation can be helpful in certain circumstances, but I also believe that unconditional regard and therapeutic attunement are key ingredients to a successful therapeutic relationship.
I believe that a movement towards individual recovery and a healthful way of being in the world may require an integrated psychological approach. I have received training in several treatment modalities, which I integrate to best serve your individualized needs based on an assessment of your treatment needs.
I am a certified practitioners in NARM - the Neuroaffective Relational Model of Psychology, which is an integration of psychodynamic, psychobiology, somatic mindfulness and resource orientations. With NARM, I collaborate with my clients in their movement towards finding a healthy and emotionally fulfilling way of being in the world and with those around you!
I also utilize and am Certified in Attachment Based - EMDR (eye movement desensitization reprocessing), a modality that is specific for working with trauma reprocessing and resource building.
I am currently training in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, also a developmental trauma therapy but one that utilizes more focus on the stuck defenses in the body and how to release what is frozen inside. It is a modality that integrates polyvagyl theory, somatic awareness, movement interventions, as well as cognitive and emotional dynamics to help resolve trauma.
I study monthly with Dr. Allan schore, studying right brain psychotherapy, relational dynamics, and interpersonal neurobiology.
I have also trained with Dr. Aline LaPierre in working with Neuroaffective Touch, a very specific type of therapy designed to support body mind integration. NA Touch helps establish a somatic foundation from which to rework trauma-based unconscious behavioral responses and rebuild self-awareness and identity.
I draw on my training in psychodynamic psychotherapy specifically self-psychology and relational psychology in order to help increase self-awareness and emotional expression. I believe it can be helpful to draw on past experiences and childhood memories in order to enrich the understanding of those elements that drive individuals to move forward in ways that they do not think about or choose - whether you call them a habit or an unconscious drive.
I focus on the issues in the here-and-now experience of the client to help increase an understanding of how daily life is influenced by both current environment and past experiences.
I use our therapeutic relationship to help us understand your way of relating to others and help you integrate new ways of relating and being with others practiced through this relationship.
There are times when a cognitive-behavioral framework is the most helpful treatment as when focusing on cognitive distortions and depressive riads or the changes of behavior necessary in addiction work and couples work. For many clients, existential and spiritual modalities will be the most helpful tools as they move toward a spiritual harmony and finding their place in the universe. Other clients will be find it useful to be assisted with the 12-Step Facilitation therapy.