THERAPIES OFFERED
EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy is a model of therapy that helps to shift how memories are stored in the brain. When memories become stored the wrong way, this results in trauma, including PTSD. Such memories cause emotional distress, inaccurate negative beliefs about ourselves, and functional problems in life. This occurs through the use of Bilateral Stimulation (BLS),
usually in the form of eye movements.
During EMDR Reprocessing, the client is asked to hold in mind aspects of a disturbing memory, while also maintaining connection to the safety of the therapist's office in the present moment. This Dual Attention is thought to allow the disturbing memory to move through aspects of the REM sleep process, which in essence strips the memory of its disturbing emotions, its strong sensory components, and its inaccurate/dysfunctional meanings.
EMDR Therapy is used to resolve traumatic memories, such as those related to sexual, physical, and emotional abuse as well as traumatic events such as car accidents, injuries, illnesses, and exposure to violence. EMDR Therapy also can resolve maladaptive self-referencing beliefs (schemas), phobias, panic, migraine headaches, substance abuse, addictive patterns of behavior, unremitting grief, and shame. It is effective for adults and children.
Learn more about EMDR here.
See testimonials from EMDR clients here
DIALECTICAL BEHAVIOR THERAPY (DBT)
Dialectical Behavior Therapy was developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan and encompasses four modules or groups of coping skills to help clients to develop skills for increasing mindfulness in daily life, decrease the intensity of negative emotions while increasing positive emotions, tolerate situations of extreme emotional intensity to survive crises without making the situation worse and lastly, skills to communicate more effectively to attend to relationships, develop more satisfying relationships and end destructive relationships. DBT emphasizes a perspective of seeking the balance and middle path in order to avoid extremes including "all or nothing" or "black and white" thinking.
ACCEPTANCE AND COMMITMENT THERAPY
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is an action-oriented approach to psychotherapy that stems from traditional behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Clients learn to stop avoiding, denying, and struggling with their inner emotions and, instead, accept that these deeper feelings are appropriate responses to certain situations that should not prevent them from moving forward in their lives. With this understanding, clients begin to accept their issues and hardships and commit to making necessary changes in their behavior, regardless of what is going on in their lives, and how they feel about it.
We can further our lives in many amazing through the process of thinking and the language we use to communicate thoughts. We have the ability to look prospectively at a problem, brainstorm a hundred solutions to that problem, pare those solutions down to the two or three that are viable, then even to lay out how each of those solutions might work out. This allows us to select what will likely be the best solution- all within the space of our minds before even lifting a finger. Our thoughts and calculations allowed us to theorize the existence of black holes long before there was even any evidence that such things might exist. There are many ways that our thoughts and language become things that we find ourselves controlled by rather than reflecting what we value in life. They become barriers rather than constructive, useful tools.
ACT is about developing a new, more flexible way of living based on what we value. In ACT, we say that we become stuck, not broken. The problem isn't our lives. It is the fact that the thing we believe is control is not control. Control, as we often understand it, is an illusion. Again, don't just buy this because it is written here, check it all against your own experience.
MINDFULNESS BASED THERAPY
In Mindfulness, we say “a miracle is something unexpected that happens.” Imagine being able to find the joy in a drop of water falling off a leaf… the laugh of a small child…a single ray of sunshine…or even the sadness of loss.
Mindfulness helps us work towards developing “fearlessness.” This is different from how most people might view fearlessness. Traditionally this word means having no fear. In mindfulness, it means that we can be OK feeling fearful.
In other words, we can develop the ability to be fearless about experiencing fear…or, for that matter experiencing any other emotion. Through mindfulness, we expand our willingness to feel emotions like shame, sadness, joy, boredom, anger, impatience, contentment, or anxiousness.
When we learn how to sit with these emotions and any other experience, we can also learn how to experience life in its truest form. We can develop freedom- freedom to let things be what they are. When we can do this, we don't have to fight with ourselves, our emotions, or our experiences. This frees us up to be genuine and present.
SCHEMA THERAPY
Schema Therapy focuses on the way in which unmet childhood needs influenced the way in which a person views themself as well as the world around them and caused the person to interpret and relate to the world in certain ways. These ways of coping and relating to their environment become deeply ingrained in the person and ultimately outlive their usefulness, leading to pervasive patterns of self-defeating thoughts, emotions and behaviors. Schema Therapy aims to assist clients in building insight into these belief systems and patterned ways of coping and behaving and work to tap into their Healthy Adult perspective and behaviors and in trying out new skills and behaviors, the client works to more effectively get their needs met.