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Counseling/Psychotherapy Services

Individual, Group & Family Counseling

"It may be when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey."

WENDELL BERRY

Conflict, suffering, and confusion can easily overwhelm us and our sense of well-being. Counseling is a path taken by those recognizing the value of outside support, increased insight and understanding, and a shift in perspective. It leads to greater clarity, resolution, resilience, and courage to take the next step in your life.

Using a variety of strength-based approaches and techniques that best serve your personal circumstances and needs, I provide counseling in individual, group, or family sessions. I work with men and women around issues of anxiety; depression; relationship, family and communication challenges; effects of trauma, and life transitions.

I find it most rewarding to work with women rebuilding their lives after domestic violence, people living with health challenges, and family caregivers moving through their loved one's illness and end of life transitions ~ learn more in my section on Medical Family Therapy.

Medical-Related Family Therapy fills a vital and often neglected role in health care: the compassionate support for clients and their families impacted by an acute, chronic, or stress-related medical/health condition. Illness and its typical accompanying experience of fear, frustration, isolation, anger, fatigue, pain, loss and confusion, can overwhelm the strongest of people and the most caring of families. What matters, and is needed most ~clarity, personal authority, understanding, dignity, supportive family interactions, compassion, ease in mind, heart, and body ~ are most often lost in the urgency, chaos, and sterility of the medical illness experience. When matters of the heart, relationships, and even overlooked mundane concerns are addressed, stress and conflict decreases, treatment results improve, along with overall comfort, satisfaction & well-being.

Trained to work within the medical care system using a collaborative "team" approach, I facilitate communication and understanding between medical staff, family members, and the client facing illness. I guide you through the process of understanding the impact of the diagnosis on you, your life and your family, helping you learn healthy effective ways of expressing everchanging and often intense emotions, and identifying how your needs are best served ~

by your family, health care providers, and your own self-care. These goals, needs, and conditions of well-being within the context of your illness are defined by you, to empower you in your own healing process.

At some point along the illness or life journey, in times of terminal illness or sudden death, there is no longer any medical "work" to be done, but there is still a great need for clear, compassionate communication and emotional support. Conversations of life review, last wishes, reconciliation, and major family decisions can be extremely difficult during this painful time ~Medical Family Therapy can be the structure and support to move through this time with grace.

I personally had the honor of caregiving my extraordinarily courageous, spirited mother during the last two years of her life. I became intensely familiar with the blessings and the challenges of family caregiving, and I learned a tremendous amount from her and the experience. I bring that knowledge and empathy to the support I provide to others also facing the deeply profound experiences of Family Caregiving and Life Endings.

Body-Oriented Psychotherapy (including EMDR)

"Where does the body end and the mind begin? Where does the mind end and the spirit begin? They cannot be divided, as they are interrelated and but different aspects of the same all-pervading consciousness." ~BKS IYENGAR

Research increasingly shows that our lifestyles, beliefs, thoughts and feelings affect and influence our overall health. Memories and emotional responses associated with trauma, accidents, and other stressful life events can be gone from our conscious mind, but can still reside in our deeper memory, exerting their effect on our physical body. Physics, biology and biochemistry now prove that we and our outer environment are ever interconnected at the deepest possible molecular level, proving what sages have suggested for thousands of years.

Bridging the verbal with the non-verbal, Body-Oriented psychotherapy uses this new understanding of science to increase self- and body-awareness, access previously hidden information held in the body, to move through and on to greater health. Currently I utilize conscious movement, yoga therapy, mindfulness based cognitive behavioral approaches, and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing),

an evidenced-based integrative therapeutic approach to processing and resolving lingering effects of wide-ranging forms of trauma and other distressing life experiences. For more information on this highly effective approach, visit www.emdr.com and www.emdria.org

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