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Adult Psychotherapy
I follow an experiential model of therapy. There are numerous models that use experiential interventions for healing. I have advanced training in the following experiential models of therapy: Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) Intensive Experiential-Dynamic Psychotherapy (IEDP) Experiential Therapy and Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Therapy (AEDP) and Emotionally Focused Therapies (EFT) for individuals, couples, and families and Internal Family Systems (IFS). I have a foundation of training as well in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Motivational Interviewing.
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​Experiential therapies are process oriented in their approach and deviate largely from a medical illness or disease model. Therapy in general aims not to fix who you are but rather to bring out more of who you are. This is done as we learn about the cognitive, emotional and behavioral defenses that keep you safe and evoke the feeling memories that fundamentally alert you to activate protection.
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When we lose an important sense of safety in connection with ourselves or others that loss will greatly influence what we feel we need to do to survive. Our nervous system responds to loss quite similarly to how it responds to physical survival threats, and it remembers how, when and where to protect us.
The science of attachment recognizes that the manner, frequency, duration, severity, even abruptness of loss matters.
The Nature Vs. Nurture debate has been long and challenging. The science of evolution and the field of psychology and the science of emotions have provided enough evidence for us to know that experience shapes us and largely influences our perception of ourselves and others in the world. Nurturing, or lack thereof contributes in a dynamic and meaningful way to the development of our lives, and works differently from the static contribution of our genes.
Trauma Therapy
Attachment and belonging is a necessary part of survival and threats to safety in attachment cause trauma. My approach follows an Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) approach which understands and addresses the splitting off from the true self that occurs to facilitate adaptation. I rely on accelerated experiential approaches known as Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) and Intensive Experiential-Dynamic Psychotherapy (IEDP) Experiential Therapy. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Motivational Inteviewing therapy approaches help to better understand how your beliefs may be affecting your life today.
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It has been said that life is a series of crises or dilemmas to be solved. This perspective is useful for understanding the challenge of survival in all our lives. Trauma is survival and it can challenge our instinct for justice, causing changes that are unwanted or unexpected.
Trauma is a part of many individual lives and the experience of it is quite broad, complex and can be severe. Injuries from trauma can leave invisible wounds too and may be hardly noticed, much less understood by a survivor. Trauma injuries jolt one abruptly and unexpectedly out of a sense of safety and activate inborn defense mechanisms for survival.
A change in basic assumptions about life occurs in all trauma experiences. But traumatic events do not always usher in support for a survivor and more often than not the aftermath is struggled through alone. You may be left with the expectation that you need to move on quickly. But what is often not understood is that trauma leaves behind invisible wounds These emotional wounds run deep, can alter your sense reality and distrupt the integrity of your dignity and self-respect.These are the wounds that need healing if ever you are going to safely explore again.
Life is about the quality of attachment to people, places, and things. In fact, we form attachments in response to most life experiences. When children do not develop safety in their emotional attachments with their parents, they have trouble forming emotionally safe attachments to others.
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Trauma therapy seeks to repair the emotional injury that stunts or damages emotional development. Caring about your life, your relationships with others and the world around you is paramount to the process of trauma healing. Understanding, acknowledging and attending to difficult emotions in therapy can help deep repair to occur. In fact, only by moving the focus away from a purely cognitive processing into an emotional processing can we achieve integration, resolution and repair.
Grieving may also take place in the process as we revisit your loss by carefully looking at the pains in your body, and the feelings you may be trying to hide or avoid.
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Trauma is a part of many individual lives and the experience of it is quite broad, complex and can be severe.
Eating Disorders
An emotionally safe relationship with the self is essential to having an emotionally safe relationship with another.
I specialize in the treatment of eating disorders. My approach to treating an eating condition is primarily relational. I aim to see each person as unique and to learn how their story of addiction to eating or not eating has come about. From the science we know that eating is a biological, social, emotional and a cultural experience, but for those who cope by eating or not eating (restricting and purging behaviors) the relationship to the self is in conflict and unable to provide support in the ways most needed.
When we eat we are distracted in a healthy manner by: a survival goal (need to eat) or because - it is time to eat (social, emotional and physical nutrition goal). In both these cases, eating is a conscious act in service of a healthy purpose.
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In disorders of eating the function of eating is a form of distraction in the sense of avoidance. Avoidance behaviors can be healthy in some cases but when they are relied upon exclusively to cope they cause harm.
In disorders of eating the act of eating or not eating is driven by a state of anxiety or fear. The function or act is to avoid (unconsciously or subconsciously) an experience. There is an underlying chronic anxiety (fear) that is often unnamed, not understood or not known that has been deemed by the nervous system (via memory feelings) to be too challenging to confront alone.
There are different types of eating disorders:
Binge Eating, Binging-Purging, Anorexia Nervosa – restriction, and various combinations of the three.
Like most addiction, coping by eating starts with low self-esteem and a conditional relationship with the self. Understanding the role of defense mechanisms in shaping individual personalities is necessary to understanding the relationship individuals develop with themselves, others, and the world.
Defense mechanisms function at an unconscious level not only to manage conflicts that arise within, but also to protect the perception of emotional and physical safety with others. Coping by eating or not eating or taking away calories helps to regulate the stability of the self and bring back the perception of safety. Becoming more familiar and comfortable with the feelings underneath the thoughts and coping tendencies is an overarching goal of therapy for restoring a healthy relationship with food.
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Treatments
The treatment of eating disorders has a complex history involving myriad protocols. All these approaches are evidenced based with proven success, still outcomes remain varied. The challenge is that individuals who seek treatment require a combination of approaches, one size does not fit all.
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Types of Treatment
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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
(CBT -E)
CBT identifies a maladaptive relationship between one’s thoughts and emotions and behaviors. This approach aims to help individuals change a negative self-image, identify behavioral cues and find alternative behaviors.
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Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
DBT aims to help individuals build tolerance for uncomfortable emotional states, forestall impulsive responding, build assertive resilience and boundary-setting with others and within family dynamics. The focus is on improving an individuals’ relationship with food through nutritional education. This approach is often used in combination with CBT.
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Out-patient Group Programs
These programs help identify poor distress tolerance and social skills. The medical model seeks to address eating disorders by focusing on the management of the neurotransmitters responsible for regulating body-brain homeostasis.