Holistic Psychotherapy

Did you know that 85% of all visits to primary care physicians are attributed to stress and emotional issues? 85%! Yet, how often does your primary care physician talk to you about things to do to manage your stress and deal with your emotions? What I am completely convinced about is this: that if we do not heal the wounds that we continue to carry around inside of us that they will continue to sabotage our efforts to be healthy, happy and successful and capable of loving, supportive connection in our lives. Ken Wilber says it best in some ways when he warns that the shadow (all the unhealed emotional and spiritual wounding) will follow you all the way to enlightenment and back if you don’t heal it.

I have combined Gestalt creativity in therapy with feminist therapy, transpersonal therapy, and now Energy Psychology and more shamanic journeying. The holistic approach attends to the mental, spiritual, physical, emotional & relational aspects of our beings and knows that we need all to be in harmony for health and well-being.

As we heal & grow these & bring greater health through nutrition, meditation, exercise, yoga, energy practices, etc., we redirect our energy from being consumed by negativity, by worry, upset, stress and reactivity, to energy that helps us begin to feel more radiantly alive!

The richness of this approach and its ability to help people transform life long sabotaging patterns, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, negative beliefs about self, other and the world that hold them back from authentic, successful and joyful living, thrills me.

Energy Psychology

EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) is the most well-known of the energy psychology modalities. Think of it as emotional acupressure, tapping on points on the body that reverses the flow of energy, causing the nervous system to return to a calm state from an agitated one. It's powerful! And, it yet is only one form of a wide array of incredible healing modalities within the world of Energy Psychology.

Energy modalities combine ancient knowing about energy with modern wisdom about consciousness and the brain/nervous system. It can be understood as an emotional acupressure method combined with additional elements that foster a reversal of energy that feels like a release of negative emotion and belief which opens automatically accesses much healthier functioning and brighter emotions.

I have been practicing and teaching EFT and more (HBLU, IEP, TAT, Energy Medicine, etc.) for 19 years now. From the first moment I began using these amazing methods my clients’ lives, my practice, and my own life began transforming in astonishing and powerful ways!

The range of energy based techniques for rapid release of stress and traumatic reactions that can be used in any setting and taught to anyone (patients, clients, students), at any age, is one of the most important contributions that can now be made. The presence of the effects of past trauma is a prime factor in the quality of people’s lives and how we react to challenges in the present and deal with stress.

The many movements that are now burgeoning across the globe addressing the traumatizing effects of racial, gender, sexual orientation, sexual and domestic violence, of emotional neglect of children, are uncovering what has been hidden.

We are at the tipping point of a healing & growth revolution! We are in the midst of a powerful moment of human evolution!

EMDR Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) integrates elements of many effective psychotherapies in structured protocols that are designed to maximize treatment effects. These include psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral, interpersonal, experiential, and body-centered therapies.

"During EMDR the client attends to past and present experiences in brief sequential doses while simultaneously focusing on an external stimulus. Then the client is instructed to let new material become the focus of the next set of dual attention. This sequence of dual attention and personal association is repeated many times in the session.” from www.emdr.com. EMDR appears to work by alternating sensory stimulus (eye movement, touch, sound) to the brain while focusing on upsetting memories, feelings, or beliefs. The bi-lateral activation helps release the emotional and physical pain associated while increasing relaxation, inner peace andgreater sense of well-being.

Ideometer Cuing

Muscle testing has been an exceedingly helpful component of my therapeutic approach for a very long time. I use it in multiple ways in therapy, coaching and training, and teach clients how to use it for themselves to receive answers from their energy fields/nervous systems/subconscious selves to questions their limited consciousness does not have access to. With it, I am able to help people get to the core issue of what’s causing the greatest pain for them. Since this issue so often begins before we have the capacity to store memory using language and context, we almost never will remember the very beginning of a self-sabotaging pattern without it.

Shamanic Journeys

The inclusion of journey work is invaluable. It is transformative work that is done in imaginal or inner space, the same space that we access in hypnotherapy…it’s a powerful place indeed, as it is relatively free from the doubts and resistance of the more conscious self. Here we can create the experience of a happy childhood, of a life of exceeding delight and fulfillment and love, and access the infinite field of possibility. It is the best way I know to help heal the inner child energy frozen in the nervous system to be freed so that the whole person is more capable of full emotional presence, a playful, light-hearted spirit, and a regained trust in self, other and the world.

Natural Alternatives to Pharmaceutical Medications

While I am not in favor of medications, and certainly not for long periods of time, some of my clients are on prescribed medications. They are often able to wean themselves through a combination of therapy with me & going to an alternative health provider (AK chiropractor, naturopath, holistic psychiatrist, holistic or functional medicine doctor). I support a client’s decision to be on mediations, but also give them information they may not have had about the side effects of these medications.

Physicians who are mostly trained now to either prescribe medication or perform surgery, have been courted and pressured by the pharmaceutical companies to prescribe you medication. Rarely will doctors refer a patient to therapy or suggest more natural means for trying to resolve emotional issues. They are not trained in emotional healing and many of them are quite uncomfortable with emotions. As one doctor I have spoken with said, “they are afraid of emotions.” I doubt that many of them are aware of effect of taking SSRI’s can be adrenal fatigue or exhaustion? Do you know that it takes a very long time to bring your body back to strength after adrenal fatigue? Google side effects of medications to learn more about the dangers of these medications and the kinds of supplements and foods that can help alleviate emotional distress longterm.

I have been increasing my knowledge of alternatives to medicines commonly used to “manage” symptoms of psychological dis-ease. Through foods and supplements MUCH can be done to bring the body back into balance and restore healthy psychological functioning, without any of the dangerous side effects that are prevalent with psychotropic medications. Unfortunately, patients are not told enough about these side effects, so are taking dangerous drugs without their own informed consent. Many parents are not made aware of the increased danger to children and adolescents taking anti-depressants.

Medications only mask problems, if they work at all, and they bring with them unwanted side effects. Studies suggest that anti-depressants are much less effective than people have been lead to believe. The concerns about side effects (possibility of worsening depression and suicidal/homicidal behavior) of the SSRI’s is so great in Europe that they are banned from use among children and adolescents.