Healing Values & Philosophies

Although I offer a variety of therapeutic services, I have strong principles that guide the work I do. In my experience, these values create the most fertile environment for healing, growth and creative expression. You will notice as you look over the following principles that they blend into each other. Just like the concept of spirit, psyche and body, they are not separate, rather aspects of the same whole.

Nonviolence:

Any time we try to force something the natural response is resistance. If I try to force myself into the spirit, psyche or body of a client, I will inevitably be met with resistance. So an underlying principle in all work is to follow the client's lead. I look to help each client become more aware of their experience rather than trying to force a change. When we become aware change occurs fluidly and naturally.

Curiosity & Nonjudgment:

Healing does not coexist with judgment. Judgment, whether towards ourselves or towards others, is an act of violence. It hurts us in ways we can't even fully comprehend. Often what harms us most is not any issues we have but how we judge ourselves for having the issue. So we will cultivate curiosity rather than judgment.

Compassion:

The other side of judgment is compassion. It is the lack of compassion that often keeps us stuck in old ways of being that no longer serve us. Therapeutic intervention without compassion is a heartless, and often fruitless, endeavor. It is my firm belief that a therapist who cannot find compassion for their clients, has no business working with them. I work with my clients with the utmost compassion. I also work with my clients to help them develop self-compassion.

Mindfulness / Awareness:

Moshe Feldenkrais often said "we can't do what we want until we know what we're doing." It is my intention to help my clients to become aware of unconscious patterns of reactions, behaviors, thoughts, beliefs and movements. Once we are aware of our patterns, we can then make a different choice if those patterns no longer serve our best interest.

Experimentation:

In our day-to-day lives we often don't have the time or space to notice the intricacies of our responses and experiences. We're often doing what we need to do to "manage" life, or we're just used to filtering out uncomfortable feelings, thoughts and experiences. I will often create experiments - activities in session that replicate real-life events. These experiments allow us to slow things down a bit so that the client can mindfully track responses and experiences, that is, to bear witness to them with curiosity, compassion and nonjudgment.

Looking for the Good:

Human beings are self-organizing. Every thing that we are, every behavior, every thought, exists for a reason. Nothing in us, or in our actions, is arbitrary. Behaviors, beliefs, ways of being in the world - they have all developed in order to serve us in some way. So, before we even begin to think about the possibility of change, first we need to understand how our current ways of living are serving us.

Integration of Parts:

Trying to separate out spirit, psyche and body is like trying to separate the circulatory system from the respiratory system. One cannot exist without the other and a change in one will create a change in the other. So in all work we draw our awareness towards the connection between our spirit, psyche and body. Likewise our body parts are not separate entities. A change in the foot will likely lead to changes in the hip, shoulder, etc.

We will also work with integrating the various parts of our selves. We all have internal parts that war with each other, uncomfortable parts of ourselves that we exile (often our vulnerable part or the part of us that is angry), parts that are wounded, parts of us that have to bear the responsibility of being an adult, etc. We will work with the parts that have been annihilated. We will also work with parts that are taking over so that they can learn to soften up. When parts of ourselves are integrated and in balance, our innate wisdom has more space to live fully.

Self-Leadership / Innate Wisdom

I believe that the great majority of us are born psychologically and spiritually healthy, however traumas and other life experiences can restrict our deep self and limit our full potential. An easy example of this is good advice - when someone passes on a piece of good advice, the reason we're able to recognize that as a piece of wisdom is that there's a part of us that resonates and knows that wisdom already. So we work with the parts that sabotage or circumvent our innate wisdom so that there's space for our truest self to live more fully.

Spirituality

My personal and professional belief is that human beings need something greater than themselves to believe in. It's part of the function of consciousness. It doesn't matter if that Something Greater is God, Buddha, Christ, Mother Nature, Family, Inner Spirit, or Science. Sometimes that Something Greater is simply a sacred value system. I work with my clients to reconnect with that Something Greater using language and metaphors that are appropriate to the client's experience.