My Relationship Centered Integrated Approach to Therapy
I work from an understanding of the research and science of psychotherapy, but I don’t follow a rigid formula or adhere to just one theoretical framework when I work with real people in the real world.
Instead, I use an integrated approach. That means that I invite clients to collaborate with me and sample from a variety of approaches that can help people reach their goals in ways that feel aligned with who they are.
We share the power to co-create the therapy work, and clients always have the right to consent to or decline any of the various approaches I offer
At the heart of my work as a clinical psychologist is relationship.
I believe that healing and personal growth happen most powerfully through connection—in your relationship with yourself, in your relationships with others, and in the therapeutic relationship itself.
Unfortunately, many of us have experienced relationships in which we’ve been unseen, invalidated, harmed, shamed, betrayed, smothered, controlled, or told that we are being illogical or selfish.
We may have learned that it isn’t safe to express ourselves, our needs, and our feelings directly. We may have been expected to anticipate and meet other people’s needs without receiving clear communication and without regard for whether we had the capacity or the desire to respond to those needs. We may have been told that we are too sensitive or too direct.
Whatever our patterns of relating to ourselves and others may be, we have the opportunity in therapy to:
become more aware and mindful of our patterns without judgment
work on being curious and self-compassionate with ourselves, to experiment with various ways of approaching situations and being in relationships, and
decide if, when and how we might want to change or tweak how we are in various relationships.
In therapy, I offer a space where we can explore what matters most to you, whether you want to work on a specific change or are looking to more broadly shift your relationships, patterns, and ways of getting through life’s challenges.
If you are interested, you can try out new skills and perspectives in a way that feels authentic and respectful of you and your pace. You’ll always have time to consider, reflect, and decide what, if anything, you want to integrate from my feedback, and if and how you want to move forward.
We will work collaboratively to set a direction for therapy, which can be modified as we work together. Each therapy session becomes a creative, relational experiment where you can be supported to try new ways of relating while also addressing your other concerns and goals (if wanted). For example:
Develop deeper self-trust in yourself
Reclaim your voice and state your thoughts, feelings, needs, preferences, and opinions in relationships
Object and openly disagree when you see things differently, don’t like something I am doing, realize I am not understanding you or your experience, or feel dissatisfied about your experience in therapy
Speak your truth without having to worry about my feelings
Speaking up to ensure that we are focusing on the goals and challenges that matter most to you.
Practice new ways of being in relationship in a safe environment before trying them in the so-called real world
Addressing other specific goals and concerns (as desired) such as anxiety, depression, life changes, BFRBs, etc.
Theories I Use in My Integrated Approach
Our work may sample from a variety of approaches to psychotherapy that I integrate. Please click on each heading to read more:
-
My work is rooted in humanistic/person-centered values, honoring each client as a whole person with the innate capacity for healing through expression, connection, and discovery. Our work will emphasize your lived experience as an individual whose unique context influences your life and needs to be respected as a part of therapy.
-
Gestalt is a holistic approach to therapy that pays attention to understanding your experience and fostering your personal growth. Gestalt emphasizes the importance of being aware and mindful of your internal experience, your experience in therapy, and what is standing out and important to you. It focuses on your connection with yourself and others. It also pays attention to mind and body as well as the interconnectedness of your thoughts, feelings, behavior and context.
Gestalt does not see your stuck places as “bad” but rather as something to be honored. We can slow down and explore these places with awareness, curiosity, and care. We can lean in to your desire to stay the same, lean into your desire for change, or go back and forth between your desire for sameness or your desire for change.
Finally, as one of many experiential approaches to therapy, Gestalt offers opportunities to explore familiar patterns, gain increased awareness, and to try out new experimental stances, new behavior, and new ways of relating that are on your growth edge. Trying therapy can be a huge experiment in and of itself.
-
• I believe that expressive and experiential therapies are most powerful when they fit your own internal motivation and interests, and they are integrated into therapy when the time is organically right for you. Expressive and experiential approaches can help people to go beyond words to feel and express their self, their feelings and their experiences. They can also be used to move towards your goals.
What expressive and experiential modalities we would use would depend on you. This could include various art forms or activities including music, movement, role playing, visual media (photography, collage, painting, sketching), writing to a combination of expressive modalities, or other experiential approaches.
-
I do CBT in an embodied, collaborative way. Rather than labeling thoughts as "irrational," I’ll gently invite you to explore: In what ways has thinking this way been a creative adjustment (i.e., a way of creative managing in a difficult situation)? Does this belief still fit? How is this belief working for you in this situation? Could we try saying it a different way or altering it —and notice how it feels in your body?
We’ll explore together whether old patterns can be reshaped into something more helpful, supportive, and self-directed. If you find that changing a thought is not shifting your feelings or experience, we may supplement this work with other approaches.
-
DBT can support self-regulation, emotional regulation, and to shift emotions using other emotions. DBT uses mindfulness, distraction, and other techniques to assist in creating a life that is worth living.
If you are interested, these skills can also be “tried out” in your session. For example, you can directly ask, and we can purposely use distraction in your session if you are feeling overwhelmed about something that can not be made better in the moment. Or, we can try various ways of grounding in your session to see what works for you. Then we can process your response to how it worked in your session and think further about how you may (or may not want to use it outside of your sessions.
-
I use a broad, customizable approach to working with individuals who struggle with BFRBs like skin picking, hair pulling, and nail biting, including Integrative Behavioral Therapy (IBT), Comprehensive Behavioral Treatment (ComB), Habit Reversal Training (HRT), CBT, DBT and ACT.
-
EMDR is used for addressing traumatic experiences (please note that I only use EMDR with established clients as part of their overall treatment plan and do not accept referrals for standalone EMDR treatment).
-
This could include motivational interviewing, the transtheoretical model of change, or other appropriate techniques and empirically supported treatments.
