Psychotherapy

Why would someone get into therapy? Usually we think about making changes when we have some unhappiness, trouble or dissatisfaction in our lives. Maybe the trouble is personal such as prolonged depressed mood or anxiety. Or maybe the problem has more to do with relationships. Something is wrong, but we may not know how to make it better. We may not even know how to make sense of the problem.

As we enter the world and grow up we learn lots of lessons. We learn ways of behaving and ways of expressing our feelings. We learn how to interact with others. We also develop thoughts and beliefs about ourselves and a certain way of treating ourselves. All of this learning was a natural outcome of our early environment and it becomes, over time, our habits of living which we may not have much awareness of. Trouble arises when what we have learned about behaving and thinking, our habits, are no longer helping us get by in our current life and relationships. Sometimes we need a person with some knowledge and experience in this area to help us identify those blind spots that are getting in the way of our well-being.

Maybe you need some new skills such as more effective ways to communicate and take care of yourself in relationships. Perhaps you would benefit from healthier ways to manage powerful feelings. Would you like to feel more confident about yourself? Sometimes the troubles that happened in the past still cause pain through distressing memories, anxiety or relationship troubles. No one can change history, but it is possible to change how we think, act and feel. Greater self awareness, self respect and a capacity for self-care is what you stand to gain. It is an investment in yourself and your future.

What would it be like to be in therapy? It would be collaboration between you and a therapist. With the help of this partnership you can come to understand the problem and how you want to grow. You could think of it like hiring a personal trainer, someone working with you to help you get stronger and healthier. I will bring certain skills and experience to the work, but you will do the real work and move yourself to a better place.

Hypnotherapy

We all move in and out of trance many times every day. Perhaps you have had the experience of getting in your car to go home and the next thing you know you are there. You may not have been aware of driving your car, stopping at traffic lights and navigating around other cars, but obviously some part of you was operating your vehicle to get you home. This is one experience of everyday hypnotic trance. Because trance gives us access to internal resources other than our “thinking brain” it can be used in therapy in a number of ways.

The focused attention of hypnotic trance can be used to provide us with fresh and creative ways of perceiving and approaching our lives. Through that state we can come to envision the changes we wish to create and what that change will look like. Because our mental activity has a direct influence on our physical state we can use hypnosis to relax and calm our body or learn to better manage pain. We can learn self-hypnosis so we can continue our improvements on our own. The possibilities are vast.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR, is a powerful therapy. It was designed to help with the resolution of trauma or other extreme personal troubles. Normally, when a human nervous system encounters a life event it processes that event to make some sense of it, learn something relevant, create a memory and move on to the next thing. This remarkable progression uses multiple areas of the brain. It is so intricate that we are only now beginning to understand the complex neurological dynamic that produces learning and consciousness.

Sometimes, however, we encounter a life event or events that overwhelm our nervous system, leaving us unable to process those experiences. It is as though the trauma stuns our neurological system, immobilizing it. The troubling event gets stuck in time, undigested. We are left with raw memory, thoughts and feelings which can feel bewildering and terrifying.

Through the use of EMDR we are finally able to integrate those undigested memories, feelings and meanings. As we process those experiences, under these supportive conditions, we become able to recall without distress, learn what is useful from those events and move forward. For more information about EMDR you may go to www.emdr.com.

Relationship with Food

It is true for all of us; our relationship with food is complex and primitive. Likely, our very first experiences of soothing and comfort were our first feedings. While we do not remember these early experiences, our bodies know many moments of being satisfied and comforted by food. Since those first experiences we have likely come to associate food with all sorts of occasions such as Holidays, celebrations, social events, bereavement and routine family habit. Food may have become so much more than just fueling our bodies. This is not necessarily a problem. Eating tasty food can be a delightful experience worthy of savoring. But what if the way we feed ourselves is hurting our physical health and self-esteem?

If food has become one of the most reliable comforts available to you perhaps you will benefit from learning some new skills for self-care. Maybe some new tools to calm yourself would be useful. Would it be helpful to have some direction and guidance while you learn to manage powerful feelings? Maybe you need help to rediscover your sensations of hunger, thirst and satisfaction. At some point in the past, you may have needed to use food as an emotional resource. I want you to know that there are other skills and capacities that you can learn, now, that will allow you to more directly and effectively nourish and care for yourself. Once we learn a range of strategies to care for ourselves then food can become, more simply, healthy nourishment for our bodies.

• Download and print our Agreement for Psychotherapy Services form. Please sign and date the form and bring it with you on your first visit to our office.
• Submit your Client Information using our online form. Note: Submitting your information before your first appointment will assist in maximizing your session time during your first visit.

I want to tell you a few things about myself. I earned a Bachelor of Nursing with a focus on “Wellness” from the University of Virginia in 1980. These were early years in clinical science’s growing awareness of how the mind and body work as one. We were breaking new ground in understanding the role of life-style on physical and emotional health. I put this new awareness to work as a public health nurse in a college community. This was an optimal place to be working with people around the practice and significance of nutrition, exercise and stress on health. Some years later I earned my Masters in Social Work from Bryn Mawr College to help people with the emotional piece of wellness. Since 1987 I have been practicing psychotherapy in a variety of settings.

We know a great deal more today than we did in the 1980s about the complex interactions between body, brain and nervous system. By reaching a new awareness of these internal dynamics it becomes possible to achieve a more robust and healthy life. Among the tools I use in therapy to help clients meet their wellness goals are EMDR and hypnosis. I have advanced hypnosis training through American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH) and I am an EMDRIA certified EMDR clinician.

I love this work. I believe it is important. I know the potential for change is vast.