I often begin sessions with a mindfulness-based practice, inviting your body to rest in a regulated state and be open to insights. We then check in, decide on the focus for the session, and get to work!

 

Often times, we will spend the hour doing talk therapy and weaving in supportive reflections, practicing different responses to challenges, role plays, feeling emotions, or exploring the Self more deeply. Modalities like EMDR are multi-phase protocols that I will facilitate, while others like Internal Family Systems can be integrated into a session without prior planning. 

 

A significant element of therapy as an individual is learning to recognize your “patterns.” We all have ingrained behavior that helped us survive at some point in our lives, and may now be causing problems. Learning to recognize what your patterns are is a huge step in transforming them. A wonderful therapist Terry Real describes this skill of pattern recognition, only in couples therapy, as “the more, the more.” The more she criticizes, the more he pulls away. The more she withdraws, the more anxious or angry he becomes. 

 

Here are the generalized stages of therapy when working with me. It does not have to be linear. A person may jump ahead, fall back, be in some stages simultaneously, or curve throughout! 

 

1. Identify the patterns causing distress. 

2. Get curious to discover where they came from and how they were formed.

3. Cultivate the ability to hold this perspective with compassion. 

4. Consciously explore new options of responding and welcome guidance & intuition. 

6. Learn new skills.

7. Practice desired behaviors. 

8. Focus on goals and vision until it becomes reality.