Experiential & Relational
Somatic Therapy
Alive.
We gather in support of your aliveness.
Life is a lot. We can get overwhelmed, dull, checked out, frazzled, or distracted. This comes at a cost to our aliveness. Don’t settle for a life that is only half expressed. You can take up space. You can be supported. You can be alive, full, activated, and at peace with who and how you are.
Humans have a unique opportunity: the ability to shift attention intentionally from automatic and habitual thought patterns to awareness of sensation in the present moment.
By strengthening our ability to accurately perceive reality through experiential awareness, we untangle outdated threat responses so that we can respond with clarity to what we are experiencing in the present moment. Caring for and updating signals from the body can be a powerful approach to lasting therapeutic change. Clients often report a greater sense of integration and wholeness, as well as increased ability to make empowered choices, rather than feeling like life is happening to them.
In this work, you engage with your growth and we follow your agency. If you are disconnected from your agency or aliveness, I will support you to find it again.
Whole.
We gather in support of your wholeness.
Somatic Psychotherapy is a body-focused counseling modality that harnesses the profound connection between the brain and body through the nervous system. At times this can include movement or touch, but usually, it is simply a slowing down to listen to the channels of sensations and signals that run through the body. Since modern society favors the intellect, this often means turning down the volume on the mind and strengthening our ability to include input from the body.
Autonomic body and nervous system patterns are built over time and through experience. Past or repeated experiences inform current emotions, memories, reactivity, and unconscious impulses. Learning to be aware of, and regulate body-mind communications can support a greater sense of agency and empowerment (rather than constantly being at the whim of our activation). A growing body of research in neuroscience and attachment theory points to the role of the body and self-awareness in promoting healthy relationships, increasing life satisfaction, and supporting therapeutic change.
Nervous system reactions, emotional regulation, and messages to the brain can be relearned through mindful, somatic, and relational practices.
Curious.
We gather to foster your curiosity and wonder.
Psychological change means embracing uncertainty and venturing into the unknown. Some of our most useful tools in therapy will be curiosity and a sense of discovery.
Too often, we create fixed notions of ourselves and our environment. Curiosity promotes a sense of wonder and engagement. It opens new possibilities and perspectives, which are essential for change. We look beyond black-and-white thinking, delve deeper into the evolving truth of ourselves, and challenge previously held beliefs.
Curiosity is an antidote to shame and self-judgement. It promotes a compassionate attitude toward ourselves and the change process. If we are continuously in resistance to ourselves, our past, or life itself, we will not get very far. Curiosity fosters resilience and adaptability in the face of change.
By remaining open-minded and genuinely curious about our experiences, we develop a greater capacity for empathy and understanding. This empathetic perspective enhances our own quality of life, but also contributes to interpersonal relationships, fosters collaboration, and encourages the exchange of ideas. Through curiosity, we can better understand ourselves and each other, leading to a more inclusive and interconnected world.
Connected.
We gather in support of your connectedness.
“Connection is our deepest desire and our greatest fear.” -Larry Heller
Humans are biologically and neurologically wired through relationship - from nervous system to nervous system - most influentially during our first years of life. We learn about who we are, about our needs and desires, our worthiness, our capacity, and our value through the reflection of relationship.
Unfortunately, most of us have experienced some level of misattunement or harm in relationship with our primary caregivers. Even the most well-intended parents will still miss cues or needs of their children. Since these wounds occurred in relationship, so too can healing happen through relationship. As such, the therapeutic relationship is a vital tool for therapeutic change. Research has shown that the greatest indicator for effective change in therapy is not a particular method or modality, but the quality of the therapeutic relationship.
The present-moment relational field extends a fertile platform for self-discovery. By slowing down to examine the ways we respond to one another and are perceived by one another, we gain greater access to a shared reality and expanded choices within relationships. We may begin to correct lacking developmental needs that were missed during childhood and create new narratives about who we are and what is possible. By integrating this kind of immediate relational data, one can adjust internalized self-concepts, refine relational skills, and often experience greater satisfaction in social identity and relational exchange.
Foundations of My Approach
Hakomi
The Hakomi Method is at the forefront in the field of mindfulness-based somatic psychotherapy. Hakomi is based in the principles of mindfulness, non-violence, organicity, and change. The root of the work is seated in present moment experience. These experiences illuminate unconscious core material and neural patterns that inform the way we see ourselves and the world. Through a loving, gentle, and safe container, The Hakomi Method assists clients to enter a place of self-study, somatic and emotional exploration, discovery, and profound transformation.
Somatic Psychotherapy
NARM
NeuroAffective
Relational Model
NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) is a mindfulness-based, developmentally-oriented, and neuroscientifically-informed clinical treatment for addressing complex, relational, and developmental trauma. Early, unconscious patterns of disconnection deeply affect our identity, emotions, physiology, behavior and relationships. By focusing on establishing connection to the parts of self that are organized, coherent and functional, NARM provides a model that supports self-regulation and personal agency, restructuring adaptive strategies into coherent narratives and behavior change. NARM uses both top-down and bottom-up approaches. Top-down approaches emphasize cognitions and emotions as the primary focus. Bottom-up approaches, on the other hand, focus on the body, the felt sense and the instinctive responses as they are mediated through the brain stem toward higher levels of brain organization. Using both bottom-up and top-down orientations greatly expands each client’s response capacity and neural integration.
PACT
Psychobiological Approaches to
Couples Therapy
Psychobiological Approaches to Couples Therapy (PACT) Developed by Dr. Stan Tatkin, author of Wired for Love, PACT is a fusion of attachment theory, developmental neuroscience, and arousal regulation. PACT teaches couples to be successful and skillful partners to one another through the principles of secure functioning. Secure functioning means that two adult individuals come together as full-functioning, autonomous agents, sharing power and authority to create an interdependent relationship, fully conditional, based on shared purpose, shared vision, and shared principles. Part of that process includes getting clear about why each individual is choosing the relationship, not based on some fantasy, but rather on the actual service it provides. Once individuals are clear on the why, PACT couple’s therapy focuses on the how. The couple physically turns toward one another and learns to track and know how to care for their partner in present-time with repetition and commitment.
Attachment
Theory
Attachment Theory rests on the understanding that as humans, we have a biological need to bond with each other. Experiences with early relationships and caregivers create a blueprint that informs the sense of safety and security you bring to adult relationships. This blueprint can be updated and revised through exploration of the therapeutic relationship, between client and therapist. My approach to attachment counseling is greatly informed by M.E.T.A. Primary Attachment Psychotherapy and PACT.
RCS
Re-Creation of the Self
Re-Creation of the Self (RCS) does not focus on the content of our beliefs, nor on the history of how we got to be who we are. Instead, it attends immediately to the awareness of which state of consciousness we are in. By inviting people to shift into a different state, R-CS provides opportunities to make empowered choices that can relieve us from painful feelings and self-critical attitudes. Because the essence of our Ideal/Organic Self is already present, the work is not an exploration and gradual healing of old wounds, but rather a momentary self-implemented choice to embody an already existing and essential way of being.
Solsara
Authentic Relating
Solsara is a community-centered, authentic relating practice based on a vision that human consciousness and culture are evolving toward the emergence of compassion, acceptance, relationship, community, and trust as the basic values from which we live our lives. Located in Oregon, Solsara offers workshops that assist students in realizing their vision and facing and dissolving obstacles in the way of being fully and authentically themselves. Through the practice of honesty, in the context of supportive and loving community, participants explore together how to be alive, in the moment, and deeply connected with others while being truly themselves.