My practice of psychotherapy is based on a belief that people hold the answers to their problems and issues within themselves. A good therapist is skilled in facilitating the process of uncovering the inner wisdom available to all of us.
One key task of a therapist is to help the client stop the self destructive patterns of “self blaming”. By listening carefully to clues, I am able to identify these patterns and give gentle feedback so the client can self correct these patterns.
Therapy is about is to learn new ways to manage our thoughts and emotions, channeling them into a purposeful goal, rather than be scattered and diffused. By learning to focus our thoughts and emotions, we can gain control over them. This process has been called centering. When our actions come from our center, we are able to be more authentic and true to our selves.
Relationships: Our happiness often is a reflection of health of our relationships. We are meant to live a life of deep connections to others. When these connections are disrupted we can experience depression and anxiety. Often toxic relationships rob us of the ability to trust again. Therapy helps people who may be are unable to trust again to gain the skills and strength to move forward again.
Specialty Areas:
Depression:
Depression is one of the most common emotional issues that effect modern society. It can be a reaction to interpersonal issues that leave the person feeling hurt and isolated.
Some of the symptoms of depression are:
▪ Being in a depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day.
▪ Decreased interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities every day.
▪ Losing weight when not dieting or gaining weight.
▪ Insomnia or hypersomnia most days. (Not able to sleep enough or sleeping too much.
▪ Having psychomotor agitation or retardation.
▪ Feeling tired, or low on energy nearly every day .
▪ Feelings excessively guilty most of days.
▪ Unable to concentrate, or being indecisive, nearly every day .
▪ Often thinking about death, having suicidal ideas without a specific plan, or attemptedsuicide or a have a plan for committing suicide.
Therapy can help people break through the feeling of being alone. It giving a voice to express feelings that are stuck inside. Therapy helps people get in touch with parts of the self that hold on to resentment and anger and as the client begins to renown those emotions, the sadness can begin to leave. The current practice is to get client to modify their thinking by replacing the negative or depressive thoughts with more positive ones. I believe that it takes more than that; people have to reconnect with others and also “let go” of their anger and resentment. This will make room for more positive emotions and thoughts to come through. If a person feels very guilty and or angry, putting positive thoughts in one’s head is not going to be enough. People have to make peace with their past in order to move on. This does not mean that being positive and having a more hopeful view of the future will not improve our mood a feelings about one self.
Anxiety:
Therapy can help people break through the feeling of isolation. It gives them a voice to express feelings that have been hard to express before. It helps people get in touch with parts of the self that hold on to resentment and anger and as the client begins to re-own those emotions, the sadness can be liberated. The most current practice is to get the client to modify his thinking by substituting negative thoughts with positive ones. I believe that it takes more than positive thinking to change our mood; people have to reconnect with others and also “let go” of their anger and resentment. These process will make room for more positive emotions and thoughts to become part of the client.
Some of the symptoms of anxiety are the following:
Muscular tension, Physically weakLoss of memory, Sweaty hands, Fear or confusion, Unable to relax, Worry a lot, Shortness of breath, Palpitations, Upset stomach, Poor concentration
One can see that anxiety is experienced in a physical way, therefore, a path to manage this emotions is though the body. Therefore an effective intervention for anxiety has to help the client feel mastery over their body. Here it is helpful to teach the client how to relax and feel centered. A mindful approach has shown to be very effective in treating anxiety.
Existential crisis:
People often find themselves lacking meaning in their lives and losing a sense of purpose. As they explore their values and beliefs that can identify situations that may cause contradictions and sabotage their behaviors. Self exploration and expansion of awareness can be helpful in finding a new path towards the future, a path that has more meaning and gives us deeper connection with family and community.
Relationship conflicts:
Conflicts with our significant other can be the cause of psychological and emotional problems, specifically depression. Therapy can help people sourt out their emotions about their conflicts. They can rehearse being more assertive in their communication style. They can explore what their exceptions are from the relationship is, how realistic or idealistic it is, etc.
Trauma- PTSD.:
This is a condition in which our understanding has been evolving. This condition has been at the root of many emotional problems. As much as our understanding in diagnosing the condition, we have lagged behind in our treatment. There several modalities that are being proven to be very efficacious in its treatment; they all have in common their integration of body and mind. Meditation, yoga, massage, exercise, etc. are some of the ones that come to mind. My approach to therapy is aligned with the recommended interventions for the treatment of PTSD.
Grief:
Some have said that life is the process of dealing with loss. Of course, there are losses that impact us more than others. There are a lot of emotions that can come to the surface when we are in the process of grieving. If the person is very young and they lose a primary care taker, it can leave a scar that can last a life time. This has been called “developmental trauma.
When a person loses some one and has feelings towards that person are ambivalent emotions, the grieving process is going to be complicated. A skilled therapist will be able to help the client identify his confusion about these feelings, sort them out in a way that they become digested and let them go.
