Our Approach & Theoretical Influences

Through empathy, warmth, humor, and active participation we create an atmosphere of emotional safety in which you can explore and express your deepest and most personal concerns.

Relationship with Yourself

In order to make a lasting difference we work with you to heal and strengthen your relationship with yourself. This results in greater clarity and confidence.
Then when you are alone, instead of feeling empty, lonely or anxious you can have the experience of inner peace.

Healing Emotional Trauma

Many people carry the results of prior trauma. This can be a single event such as a physical injury or assault, or the cumulative effects of stress over time such as dealing with a chronically ill sibling or an alcoholic parent. Healing emotional trauma frees people to live more expressively, comfortably and securely. Symptoms of depression and anxiety often resolve. The specific methods we use for trauma resolution include:

Skill Building

We support you in learning specific skills which you can use for the rest of your life to facilitate your own growth. Some of the specific skills address:

Influences on Our Work

In our work with you, we use a variety of psycho-spiritual approaches that can bring about lasting change. These may include:

Person-Centered Therapy

This extraordinary school of psychotherapy encourages the creation of therapeutic relationships which foster unconditional positive regard, genuineness, and empathy.

Spiritual Psychology

The essence of Spiritual Psychology is more deeply connecting to and trusting one’s inner wisdom and co-creative abilities. This leads to deeper levels of self-acceptance, self-forgiveness, and compassion. Learning to use all situations for upliftment, growth, and healing is a hallmark of this approach. The Spiritual Psychology model is truly a holistic one in that it encompasses all levels of a person’s life: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt Therapy relies on the power of the present moment to direct the course of therapy. Following the flow of your present thoughts and feelings leads to the awareness of specific unfinished business with self and others. Once discovered, this unfinished business can be brought to closure. As closure occurs people often experience greater authenticity, less anxiety and more spontaneity.

Expressive Arts Therapies

Expressive Arts Therapies provide powerful ways of connecting with inner experience. The use of drawings, sand tray and metaphor provide opportunities for expressing and resolving thoughts and feelings that are deep and complex. Using symbols we bypass the rational mind and reveal to ourselves what is most true.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing/ EMDR

EMDR was originally developed for the rapid and effective healing of emotional trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Another useful application of this powerful tool is strengthening the self which is accomplished by:

Developmental Approach to Couples Therapy

This approach is an empathy building and non-blaming approach to improving relationships. Identifiable relationship stages are delineated and used to support relationship growth. Each partner’s individual rate of developing and the couple’s difficulty in maturing to the next stage of development are viewed as factors in a couple’s distress.

Structured communication tools promote honest self-revelation and non-reactive listening to increase intimacy and tolerance for each other’s individual differences.

Cognitive Therapy

Cognitive therapy supports the discovery and transformation of conscious and unconscious beliefs. These beliefs, often learned in childhood, have far reaching influences on choices and decisions throughout life.

Applied Psychology

Applied Psychology develops the abilities for organizing and implementing projects which turn dreams into practical realities. Time management skills, staying focused, and treating obstacles as keys to further learning and development are part of this discipline.