My Approach
In Relational Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, interactions between the therapist and client serve as a map for understanding internal and interpersonal experiences that keep the client feeling stuck. In a safe supportive therapeutic relationship, clients can better explore new ways of thinking, gain more inner strength to carry on their daily life, and practice more effective ways of relating to others. Additionally, the therapist assists the client in accessing personal qualities that have been under developed or inhibited by maladaptive beliefs about themselves, others, and the world.
The goal in this approach is for clients to discover how their unconscious mind is creating problems for them and how those problems can be altered toward creating opportunities for change, healing, and growth. Our unconscious mind is comprised of automatic processes and includes what we have learned about ourselves, relationships, and life. It monitors what we pay attention to and what we keep out of our conscious awareness, including thoughts, feelings, and desires, for fear that they might cause problems in our relationships with others and ourselves. The problem is that these thoughts, feelings, and desires continue to exist and influence the way we feel, think, and act, regardless if they are in our immediate awareness or not.
Through Relational Psychodynamic Psychotherapy clients may form a more harmonious relationship between their conscious and unconscious mind so that they can begin to see possibility and find meaning in their internal and interpersonal experiences. In other words, clients can better understand how their minds, bodies, and interpersonal lives can work together to relieve and heal their emotional pain and make lasting changes in their life.
Emotion Focused Individual Therapy
Emotion Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) is an evidenced-based approach supported by the science grounded in attachment theory. It is effective in benefiting distressed individuals, including those who suffer from anxiety, depression, addiction, PTSD, and chronic illness, among other presenting problems. The primary goal of the model is to broaden and adapt the emotional responses of the client and create new patterns of interacting with others in one’s relationships. EFIT helps clients identify the dominant emotions and patterns in their lives to better understand the root cause of mental and emotional struggles, as well as provides a language and skills for clients to develop healthy attachment bonds in all types of relationships. The model also empowers clients to shift from numbing or agitation into emotional balance and the develop the ability to trust the self and engage fully with others.
Throughout the process, clients are invited to explore emotions and relational patterns beginning in childhood in order to uncover underlying needs and suppressed feelings. The therapist guides clients through the process of recognizing and validating those thoughts and desires to promote healing and teach clients methods of communication that will aid in fostering healthy relationships in the future. Clients learn to be emotionally available, empathic and attuned, which prepares them for or strengthens their relationships. Finally, as new sequences of bonding interactions occur and replace old, negative patterns, these new patterns then become self-reinforcing and create permanent change in a client’s life. As a result, clients develop a sense of safety and security within themselves as well as within their closest relationships.