Therapy
What It’s Like to Be In Therapy With Me
During your session, I am present and immersed in your world, viewing your feelings and experiences with acceptance, empathy and care. I listen carefully and ask questions that help you make relevant connections to heal and problem-solve. That’s traditional talk therapy that a lot of therapists do. So, how I’m different is that I also bring in at least one experiential exercise for you to do during each session, during which you physically and strongly feel your emotions and solutions (as strongly as you can tolerate for that day). My clients tell me that they feel so empowered by these experiential exercises, often discovering capabilities within themselves they never knew they had. It’s being connected to your own wisdom, intuition, feelings, and inner knowing.
Overall
I have been trained to do therapy in many “modalities,” which just means using different formal philosophies and methods, as most experienced therapists do. For example, I have been trained to do Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), EMDR, Hypnosis, etc. Therapists go to trainings and learn new methods often. We then integrate what we learn from these trainings, as well as from our life experiences and clinical experiences, into our practice.
For the first ten years as a therapist, I eagerly learned new ways of helping clients, but felt like each modality lacked something important. It was like I was looking for the grand unifying theory of psychology, and didn’t find it. I’m still looking…but I have put together something that addresses more than helping clients get rid of pathologies/problems, which was what traditional therapy was designed to do. Traditional therapy does not teach us how to go beyond not having a mental illness, HOW to be HAPPY. It is really good at helping you understand how you got to where you are at. And it helps you get rid of being depressed, etc. But then you get to “neutral”, and often spiral back into old patterns, only to continually need to be in therapy to feel ok.
I can use some of the following methods (and other ones relevant to your situation) to GET YOU TO BEING HAPPY, and to sustain a fulfilling way of living.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) Theory
In helping you with aspects of your life that you find problematic…(who doesn’t have some?), I use this IFS framework in viewing the human experience. It is the belief that we are made up of many parts, each representing different times and experiences in our lives. For example, you may have a part that is a wise and loving adult, a part that is a playful and sassy teenager, a part that is lonely child wanting more of your parents’ attention, and so forth. It is normal to have many many different parts, maybe even hundreds. And the interesting thing is that each of our parts can have a different set of rules they behave by, different emotions and logic, different personality, etc. How you behave towards a significant other is probably different from how you behave towards your boss, for example. Different people and situations bring out different parts in us. There is only a problem when there is one or more parts that are not getting what it/they want or need, and therefore, it/they make you behave or feel in ways you do not want to behave or feel. What I do is help you identify parts of you that need attention, and help you give them what they need. When they have that, they allow you to be happy and move forward in your life easily and meaningfully. For more information on this theory, go to: https://ifs-institute.com/. It starts out saying that Internal Family Systems is a powerfully transformative, evidence-based model of psychotherapy. I have found it to be very powerful and fast, compared to other forms of therapy.
Positive Psychology
Is the scientific study of what makes people happy, how you create meaning for yourself, and how you keep feeling motivated and resilient. Unfortunately, many people, including me, were never taught nor shown how to be happy. As an immigrant, I was only taught how to get ahead in life in monetary and status achievement, but that did not include feeling good about my life. A lot of us seem to reach “a successful life,” only to feel empty or feel something important missing and not know what it is.
Many great minds throughout history contributed to the areas covered in Positive Psychology, but it was formalized and systematically researched by psychology professors Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at the University of Pennsylvania (https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/). At their website you find:
“Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive. The field is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play.”
As your therapist, I’d like to know what you do everyday. How do you behave out in the world? This tells me what you expect to happen based on your past, and what you will experience on a daily basis. I apply principles of Positive Psychology to assess what might be keeping you back, and help you adopt more helpful ways for optimal functioning. I see it as the backbone of having a fulfilling life. You need adequate sleep, food, relationships, and many other basics to even begin to be able to know what it takes for you, uniquely, to be happy. Through knowing what you need to add and take away in your life, you will be able to start a journey to deepening your sense of happiness and fulfillment. With new habits, you will be much less likely to back into old habits of stress, anxiety and depression.
Expressive Arts Therapy
Psychology researcher Brene Brown (https://brenebrown.com/), who’s been studying what makes people feel a deep sense of love, belonging and self-worth (aka happy) for the past two decades found that people who do something creative everyday lead much more fulfilling lives than those who don’t. She’s not the only authority out there who came to that conclusion…she’s just one of my favorites. You might have seen her Ted Talks. Another factor include being able to be vulnerable (aka having genuine relationships). Most therapists can help you there well.
Because of the industrial revolution and the “cookie cutter” way we were taught to behave in traditional schools, it is hard for most people to live a creative life. But this is essential to accessing your intuition and emotions, the stuff that makes you feel alive! In working with me, you will find and use your creativity superpower. It might be playing with art, music, dancing, singing, rapping, writing, acting, cooking…there is so much to choose from. We won’t just talk. You have to DO something new to really FEEL something new. And I will help you make being creative a habit. If there is a lot of old emotional stuff you have been carrying with you all your life, we can spend most of the time using expressive arts for you to make sense of and release them, before using the creative arts to uplift you.
Here you can learn more about what Expressive Arts Therapy is, written by one of my teachers, Cathy Malchiodi, Ph.D.:
Guided Meditation, Hypnosis, Mindfulness, and Somatic Methods
I use a combination of these methods to help get you to a state of relaxation quickly so you can directly access your intuitive knowledge and solutions for healing and optimal functioning.
Law of Attraction Coaching
Once you’re at the point where you are feeling pretty good, but feel stuck in a situation (relationship, work, role, self-image, anything really), I can help you use the law of attraction to create a future that you want to live in. We use guided meditation and visualization, hypnosis and self-hypnosis to help you really feel your way into creating a reality that your spirit want for you. I will always be transparent and let you know your options in therapy, and you are always the authority in what you want to happen and what you do. I give you insight, tools, and emotional support. I witness your choices and celebrate your growth with you.
Using the Law of Attraction is living by the natural laws of the universe. The most basic of these laws is “like attracts like.” Being in higher emotional states such as gratitude and love causes your energy field to expand with more positive physical manifestations of things, situations, people, and feelings that you want more of. Being in lower emotional states such as anger, jealousy, and hate makes people contract mentally, emotionally, limiting themselves to living in the past, and perpetuating negative future states.
Quantum physics is beginning to scientifically and physically prove the law of attraction. At a subatomic level, we can prove that thought alone influences physical matter. It is not science fiction. It’s for real. If you are intuitive and are in touch with your emotions, you know it’s real too, and do not need to wait for scientists to engineer machines that will prove it to you. You can use the natural laws now to live a life you truly want.
YOU ARE THE DIRECTOR
While working with me, I encourage you to be the creative director of your life. It’s like I’ll be teaching you to write in a new language (with a new alphabet system), but you choose what story you want to write, and how fast or slow you do it. If you do it while singing, dancing, painting, cooking, cleaning, acting, gardening…it is completely up to you. I am cheering you on, and look forward to co-creating some awesome changes with you!