Specializing in targeted, healing-focused neuropsychotherapy for trauma, depression, bipolar, anxiety, ADHD, and personality difficulties.
As a therapist I don’t wear a professional mask.
My approach relies on evidence-based tools, but it won’t feel protocolized. I’m frequently told that I have a safe, calming presence. I care deeply about my clients and our relationship will be as genuine as it is focused. I work well with clients who struggle in traditional talk therapy.
You can expect private, calm, compassionate support combined with skilled treatment and gentle but firm guidance from me. My purpose is to help you heal, feel, and function the best you ever have as you continue building a life that has meaning and value to you. My training as a neuropsychotherapist allows me to assess, treat, and promote healing for the whole spectrum of mood difficulties including depression, bipolar and anger as well as anxiety, obsessive compulsion, substance abuse, relationship problems, and personality difficulties.
You will feel and be heard. You will feel and be seen. But this isn’t just about support.
It’s about healing. As we work on your healing you can expect calm, steady, compassionate support and gentle but firm guidance while I accompany you in connecting new dots and achieving healthy self-direction. Healing means you can meet your own emotional needs. Healing is what will set you free to reach the goals you choose. Healing requires us to accept the truth. When something painful happens to us, our minds usually do exactly what they’re designed to do – protect us – but often via defense mechanisms that lead us to avoid or disregard the truth about our experiences and our choices. The transformational change necessary to heal requires complete self-awareness and acceptance of the truth. So, part of my job is to make it safe for us to tell each other the truth.
The foundation of my approach is schema-focused therapy (SFT).
SFT is an advanced psychotherapy method combining key elements of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), psychoanalysis, internal family systems (IFS), attachment theory, and emotion-focused therapy. On top of this foundation I may stack several neuropsychotherapy methods including memory reconsolidation, narrative exposure therapy (NET), eye movement desensitization & reprocessing (EMDR), and mindfulness practice. I also sometimes use elements and tools from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and exposure and response prevention (EXRP).
“Know all the theories, master all the techniques, but as you touch a human soul be just another human soul.” – C.G. Jung
Schema-Focused Therapy (SFT)
An advanced psychotherapy method that combines key elements of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), psychoanalysis, attachment theory, and emotion-focused therapy. SFT is a compassionate, humane therapeutic approach that emphasizes the patient-therapist relationship to provide corrective emotional experience using relational, cognitive, emotion-focused and behavioral techniques. It is effective for trauma healing, depression, and personality difficulties. SFT is the foundation of my approach, on top of which I layer multiple neuropsychotherapy techniques.
Neuropsychotherapy
Neuropsychotherapy refers to a group of tools & methods that produce sustainable brain change by altering neural pathways & networks in ways that alleviate difficulties like trauma, anxiety, depression, anger, and addiction. It produces better results, faster than traditional talk therapy. I’m trained & certified in neuropsychotherapy by Dr. Jennifer Sweeton (Stanford University).
Memory Reconsolidation
Symptoms like depression, anxiety, anger, irritability, and personality difficulties are many times the result of powerful negative emotional learning earlier in life. If I only help you create new emotional learning, the likelihood remains that pre-existing unhealthy emotional learning will continue to exert its influence. So we’ll work together and use memory reconsolidation to delete old emotional learning in addition to creating new emotional learning. The most recent 20 years of neuroscience research have shown us how this can be accomplished at a synaptic level using this specific talk therapy technique.
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR is a neuropsychotherapy treatment that was designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories. The idea behind EMDR is that traumatic memories, when unprocessed, can become “stuck” in the brain and lead to a wide array of emotional and psychological difficulties. EMDR facilitates accessing the traumatic memory network so that information processing is enhanced with new associations forged between the traumatic memory and more adaptive memories & information. These new associations result in elimination of emotional distress and development of cognitive insights. In addition to traumatic memories, EMDR can be modified to treat many other types of psychological distress including anxiety, phobia, OCD, anger, and depression.
Trauma Healing
My approach helps trauma survivors regain the ability to live in a calm, relaxed mind & body. This is accomplished first via mindfulness practice and emotional regulation training, then by deleting and replacing powerful negative emotional learning using narrative exposure therapy (NET), memory reconsolidation, and eye movement desensitization & reprocessing (EMDR). When provided by a skilled neuropsychotherapist who is able to co-regulate with you, this combination of techniques gets to the root of acute, chronic, and complex trauma.
Colorado & Washington, USA
Call (585) 330-6741
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