Feeling Better

WHY THERAPY HELPS YOU TO FEEL BETTER

Therapy helps you release and heal from the harmful effects of the past, learn new ways to deal with stress, cope with anxiety, stop being triggered by trauma and deal with feelings.

THERAPY HELPS YOU CHANGE YOUR BRAIN

Your brain and body get flooded with naturally produced stress chemical when you are under stress, feel anxious or something triggers a bad memory.  Your reactions often become habitual patterns of thoughts, feelings and sensations.  These form a neural network in your brain.

TRIGGERS

The more often you react the same way, the more deeply ingrained it becomes.  The good news is that through therapy you can reverse them and you can change your neural networks.  This literally changes the connections in your brain and as a result, changes the way you think and feel and the sensations in your body, for the better.

THE CHALLENGES ARE WORTH IT

Things really do get better. When you get into therapy, you begin to pay attention to things you’ve been ignoring.  This can feel right at the same time as it feels bad. Therapy can lead to relief and to radical reductions in stress, anxiety and panic.  Fortified by the changes you have made and equipped with new insights and mental health skills gained in therapy, you can become a new you, living the life you want.

LIFELONG SKILLS NOT A DAILY PILL

Positive results from therapy tend to last.  Research studies confirm this. It is different from taking medication.  Healing from the wounds of the past frees you. Healing, skills, understanding and wisdom that you gain in counseling last a lifetime.

IT’S TIME

Once we are adults, I believe it’s our responsibility to get help to repair any damage that has been done to us.  We live in reaction to stress, fears, the way we were raised, educated, things that happened, our relationships.  Parents, siblings, romantic partners, events or circumstances may well be to blame for the way we turned out.

TOSS THE UNWANTED BAGGAGE

My philosophy is that as adults we have both privileges and responsibilities. One of them is to work to heal the wounds we sustained in the past and stop carrying the emotional baggage of the past.  Your past made you who you were.  With the help of therapy, you get to define who you are and you get to be who you want to be.  If this is your moment, I’m glad.

YOU CAN TELL ME ANYTHING

Believe me, I have heard some bad stuff.  I am still here, acutely aware of the human condition, still doing therapy with people.  In addition to giving you the space to say what you need to say, I know how to help you deal with it.  Stress and anxiety can be managed. Trauma can be healed.

WE CAN DEAL WITH IT TOGETHER

Therapy is very helpful with the right therapist.  It’s not like trying to talk with friends or family. They respond based on their life and their relationship to you.  As a therapist, I hold a safe non-judgmental space for you to tell me anything. It’s ok, you won’t shock me and you don’t have to protect me.

Bad experiences can be processed so they stop intruding; they can become memories that you remember as often as an old photo in a scrap book on a shelf.

THE PROCESS

Let’s dive in, do the work and then be done. You’ll define goals, learn about anxiety, get to the roots of the anxiety and deal with it, then wrap up feeling relieved and lighter. You’ll leave with tools, new ways of thinking and feeling, and new neural networks that store the past in a different and healthy way.  You’re welcome back if something comes up later, but you once you’ve met your goals, you’re good!

HOW DO WE DEAL WITH IT?

Trauma Reprocessing / Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR); Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction techniques; Internal Family Systems; Inner Child work; a variety of relationship therapies including Psychobiological Approach to Therapy (PACT), Gottman, adult and childhood attachment theories; strengths-based, solution focused therapy; Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT); and a somatic approach. You can read more about healing trauma in Issues

EMDR

EMDR, can be a relatively fast modality to resolve all kinds of issues.  EMDR is powerful because it uses thoughts, feelings, and the five senses–visual imagery and physical sensations to resolve difficulties.

PREPARATION

First, we teach you skills to help you to de-stress.  Then, when you’re ready, we set the scene.  Based on your body language and how the processing is going, I prompt you to follow what comes up and then stop to regroup.  The process is unique to you and driven by you.

THE BEST PART

Here’s why it’s so valuable: If I tell you that you’re a good person worthy of love and respect, that may help you.  But if you reprocess negative beliefs about yourself and develop new positive beliefs, you will know just the right words to express your discoveries about how wonderful you are.

YOUR OWN WORDS

You will say it in your own words. You will feel a somatic sense of well-being and healing. It is a powerful experience. It will help you to heal your past and create a better future. You are unique and you will come out of therapy with a new felt sense and positive understanding of the unique and wonderful being that you are.