What To Expect
Therapy is as unique as the individuals present. I bring an integrative approach,
which looks different every time because of the uniqueness of you and all that comes with you!
Therapy is a dynamic, ever shifting, ever meander river of change. No two sessions will ever look alike because humans are not stagnant, time does not leave us alone. Although I approach every session with AEDP and EFT as my modalities and theories of change, how they are implemented is determined on how you and I show up. A question I will often ask is How do we find yourself today? A deeper, more full-bodied question, inviting curiosity and exploration. Because of the way I work, every session is as unique as you are in any given moment. So, I want to share with you a bit about the common rhythms that occur in the counseling I provide. This will be a frame to help you imagine what therapy might look like with me as your therapist, not an exact stamp of how it will actually look.
RHYTHMS
Bringing Attention to the Present Moment
As a trauma & couples’ therapist, we may start with what brought you to counseling. Usually these are symptoms or relational distresses that are pretty unbearable, not getting better, and are disrupting your ability to cope. As you share and the work deepens, I will continuously bring us back to notice the current moment with yourself, with me, and with your spouse (if applicable). I will ask you to pay attention to the experiences happening somatically in your body and how you are experiencing the connections with those in the room. A phrase you will hear me say often is Process over content. This is important because transformance lies in the present and not just in the (re)telling of something. It is in the experience of what you are doing, not the knowledge of something that we heal. In the present is also where C.S. Lewis describes in The Screwtape Letters where Jesus meets us. This is where we begin.
“The aim of treatment is that the patient should have an experience, a new experience, and that the experience be good. Understanding psychopathology as the result of an individual’s unwilled and unwanted aloneness in the face of overwhelming emotions, we seek to be there, together with the patient… viscerally experiencing previously feared to unbearable emotions in the context of an emotionally engaged relationship with a trusted other, and being able to process these to completion until their adaptive action tendencies are released”
– Dr. Diana Fosha, 2005
Therapeutic Relationship
There is a lot of focus on how we are working together. This is essential because safety and trust is required for us to get anywhere, and as the therapist, I want feedback to know if we are progressing or not. Additionally, based on interpersonal neurobiology, attachment theory, and many theologians, the relationships we have can help provide us a new template of interacting with ourselves, our stories, and with others. It has been found that we heal in the context of connection with a person who is accessible, responsive and engaged. The therapeutic alliance can be a context in which healing can occur. Isn’t it beautiful that God designed us to need each other and possibly even heal one another heal?!
“Fire can warm or consume, water can quench or drown, wind can caress or cut.
And so, it is with human relationships: we can both create and destroy,
nurture and terrorize, traumatize and heal each other”
– Bruce Perry, M.D., Ph.D. & Maia Szalavitz
Healing in the Session
What is healing really? Healing is something that is new, getting something that we needed but never had, is something that is felt and undeniable. It is in the session, between your nervous system and mine, that you can remove the barriers to the unbearable and potentially traumatic emotions that have yet to heal. To then process it to completion, so that you become unstuck and access the wired in action tendency to inform what you should do next. How I work with you will try to remove the barriers at play, so as to move you towards this kind of transformance, live in session, and help you focus on it long enough that it becomes real to you.
“Transformance happens from the ground up: when we have a new experience of
ourselves and hold our attention on it long enough for it to sink in”
– Hillary McBride, PhD
Body
I work with your awareness of your body to bring your attention inwards, out of content and into experience. Healing begins with the simple action of shifting our focus to the body and out of the left-side of the brain of content, facts, and knowledge. I agree with the Hebrew Bible, that speaks of body and soul in unity (Neffage) and never having intended them to be severed or separated, they are one. The simple shift of moving out of our heads and into our bodies creates new neuropathways so that healing is possible. God wired our bodies to be roughly 9x smarter than our conscious brain. I am working with you to tap into that wisdom, so you become your own resource.
“Lose your heads,
gain your senses”
Faith-Based
I have found, and research supports, that working in congruence with one another’s shared beliefs allows for a quicker establishment of therapeutic alliance and trust. It can also provide a deeper experience due to both parties willing and able to enter into spiritual experiences together (like worship, prayer, interaction with God, etc.). As a Christian faith-based clinician, I aim to work in a way that removes barriers between you and Christ. Which often is untangling what man has said, and inviting you into curiosity and relationship with Christ. As Scripture shows, He is often correcting what has been said, and inviting us into a new experience of Him. There are a lot of shoulds and good intentions in Christianity today, but I have found and have witnessed, that erroneous teachings violate human design. If a teaching invites you to violate your body’s design, it is creating disunity between an image bearer and Christ Himself. I know that even writing this may cause someone to feel anxious and worried; as you may have been hurt by church, how someone says they’re a Christian, and how they interpret Scripture. You might be a pastor and want to know that you can be understood here. I want you to know that I believe that my job is to meet you where you are, and hold no pretense that I know what is good and right for you- that is yours to find. As I read in scripture, Jesus healed us before we were saved- I think that we get this backwards sometimes, that we need a behavior modification plan so we can access the healing He has for us. I want to invite you as you are, and let’s start there. Let’s meet on the mat of brokenness and find that there we are already loved.
“You must catch the troubling foxes, those sly little foxes that hinder our relationship. For they raid our budding vineyard of love to ruin what
I’ve planted within you. Will you catch them and remove them for me? We will do it together”
– Song of Solomon 2:15 TPT
*Foxes, for example, might be your body’s experience of trauma and struggling to regulate, so inability to be present in the moment; foxes are not always meaning sin.
Approaches
You have most likely read this far into this website because you’re experiencing something unbearable and aren’t making much headway on your own. I want to help undo that aloneness and bear with you! If you are curious about the integration of theories I use, I primarily use Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) and Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT). These therapeutic approaches help us shift out of cognition and fact into the body’s experience and wisdom. So that together emotions that are festering can metabolize, we can notice our patterns of interaction with ourselves and others, and all in hopes of providing a transforming experience that creates new neuropathways to sustain growth and healing. I also integrate other neurobiology, theology, and interpersonal psychologies as applicable. These might be parts work pulled from IFS, somatic functioning strategies, and interventions of narrative therapy. I see every client as unique, so the integration of approaches will be as unique as you are, based on my training and skill set.