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My counseling philosophy is based in the belief that a fulfilling life is what all humans strive to achieve. In order to attain that goal people employ many different strategies, some more effective than others. As a professional counselor and owner of I-Thrive Counseling, I established my practice, because I believe that every human has the capacity to attain a fulfilling life. The present is the most important aspect of a well lived life. Living in fulfillment and contentment, with yourself grounded in the now, allows you to use your creativeness, adaptation skills, and abilities to attune to your world. I don’t believe that a person must be “happy” every day; perhaps a more realistic goal would be contentment, awareness of the now, and fulfillment.
To help you achieve a fulfilling present and promising future, I provide a safe place for you to open up, to explore new options, to remember your path, to question, to practice new ways, to grow, and to heal. In order to achieve this I employ EMDR, a therapeutic approach that is also known as Adaptive Information Processing. This approach focuses on first finding emotional blocks that keep you from achieving contentment. Then, once these blocks are identified they are worked through by eye movements while remembering your past, focusing on a better future, and staying grounded in the now.
Depending on your situation I might also use techniques from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focusing on emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Thoughts, behaviors, and emotions are the focus of insight oriented psychotherapy in combination with systematic goal oriented cognitive and behavioral changes. I embrace a client based and solution oriented approach, focusing on your needs and immediate concerns so you can begin to utilize the insights and skills you learned right of way. Once the treatment plan is established, usually during the second session, I will make sure that we stay focused on the goals you’ve set. Goals are reevaluated at the beginning of each session, allowing you to set the pace and to make changes where needed.
I consider counseling as a partnership, working with you to realize the life you want to create. I believe that people assume the primary responsibility for their achievement of goals, and that people at every stage of their life attempt to do the best they can within their ability and according to the circumstances they are confronted with. Not everyone necessarily needs counseling or therapy, therefore I also offer life-coaching and consultation services to help you with short term concerns. A person’s ultimate striving is to be in harmony with their environment, so they might thrive at the highest level of functioning within their lifetime. Relationships are the most important aspect of a person’s life. It is my intent to help you achieve lasting and fulfilling relationships with your family, friends, community, and at work. I want to assure you that I will make every attempt to provide counseling services that are effective, brief, and solution focused in order for you to gain the maximum benefit.
Oftentimes, individuals can benefit from therapy or consultation by discovering that they already have what they need in order to overcome their challenges. Becoming aware of their own strengths can empower people to work towards positive change. As they uncover deeply held beliefs limiting their life’s fulfillment they learn to trust their intrinsic wisdom again and begin to create the life they envision.
I provide a range of services to help clients with relationship concerns, their personal well-being, and professional development in a caring, safe, and non-judgmental atmosphere, and I look forward to being a part of my clients' healing and growth.
Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing - EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a method of psychotherapy that uses a set of standardized protocols that Is based on the Adaptive Information Processing Model developed by Francine Shapiro. Although EMDR is a stand-alone theory in psychotherapy, it allows clinicians to incorporate elements from many different treatment approaches. These include but are not limited to Cognitive Behavioral, Humanistic, Psychodynamic, Exposure, Experiential, Reality, and Person Centered.
Many advances and discoveries are being made regarding the way therapy affects the brain. Currently however, we don’t know very much about how any form of psychotherapy works in regards to neurobiology and in the brain. However, we do know that when a person gets exposed to very upsetting events, their brain cannot process information as it does ordinarily. The brain locks traumatic events into memory and this affects the functioning of the person when they deal with family, friends, community, and at work.
The negative life event becomes "frozen in time" and the person displays symptoms such as avoidance of certain stimuli, hypervigilance, irritability, worrying excessively, poor self-esteem and efficacy, depression, poor concentration, etc. Their ability to function normally has been reduced. These people might have developed Major Depressive Disorder, Anxiety Disorders, or PTSD. Oftentimes, when remembering a trauma, it feels as bad to the person as going through it the first time: images, sounds, smells, and feelings haven’t changed. Such memories have lasting negative effects that interfere with the way a person sees the world and the way they relate to other people.
EMDR distinguished between "Simple Trauma" such as resulting from short term exposure such as a car accident and long term trauma or "Complex Trauma" which results from many traumatic events from childhood or traumatic life situations. An EMDR Therapist also distinguishes between big T events (car accidents, sexual trauma, natural disasters) and small t- events (repeated shaming, being bullied, invalidation by parent). These events have a direct effect on how a person makes sense from their surroundings, how they view their ability to navigate their world, and how they respond to future environmental stimuli. Traumatic life events change how a person adapts to their world and relates to their family, friends, community and work life.
The “Adaptive Information Processing Model” in EMDR seems to have a direct effect on the way that the brain processes information. After successful EMDR treatment, normal information processing is resumed, and a person no longer relives the images, sounds, and feelings of the event or life situation when it is brought to mind. You still remember what happened, but it is less upsetting. Many types of therapy have similar goals. However, EMDR appears to be similar to what occurs naturally during dreaming or REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Therefore, EMDR can be thought of as a physiologically based therapy that helps a person utilze the disturbing material in a new and less distressing way. Read more about it on the EMDRIA website.
CBT is often called problem solving therapy and can be used with any life situation or task. The principles used are founded on the theory that present or anticipated problems demand adaptive responses in thinking and functioning. This approach requires the client to focus and be mindful of the goals they set for themselves every week. Although no immediate effective response is apparent at first, once changes have become a regular part of the thinking and behaviors of the person, they are effective and long lasting.
In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy solutions to problems and difficulties are both made through cognitive (or thinking) and behavioral changes. The problem solving process focuses on specific situations and the client and therapist develop a specific goal for each situation. Skills and coping responses needed are developed through the treatment plan. An effective response achieves the goal of problem solving and maximizes positive consequences.
Each problem you are trying to solve in therapy requires new attention, focus, effort, persistence, and tolerance for frustration. There is a specific process your therapist uses to problem solving and identification of the particular thinking distortion you might be stuck in. We all know distorted or irrational thinking and have all engaged in it. Some examples of irrational thinking include all or nothing thinking, jumping to conclusions, fortune telling, focusing on the negative, disqualifying the positive, allness and neverness, minimization, labeling and over generalization, perfectionism, and personalizing.
According to Epicetus “People are disturbed not by things but their view of things”. He already knew this in 100 A.D.
All people show human irrationality, emotional disturbances, “shoulds, oughts and musts”, procrastination, and lack of self-discipline. It seems to be easier to learn self-defeating behavior than self-enhancing behavior. Insight only partially changes behavior and there is pressure within us to return to irrational thought and acts. However, continuing with mindful reflection and self-challenging can resolve the issues over time.
So how can this be accomplished? At first you will challenge yourself and decide if you are facing the issue and are correctly recognizing the problem -are you thinking about the issue rationally? Do you have the ability to attribute cause and can you perceive it as a challenge and not a catastrophe? Do you believe that you can cope with the problem effectively? Can you control the tendency to be impulsive in your problem solving?
In the initial stages your therapist will gather relevant factual information, put it into perspective, facilitate the recognition of irrational beliefs, and help with setting specific goals to your individual problem. Then, at the beginning of every session your therapist and you will go over the solution process, check in with your thought processes, and check how well you have done with progression towards attaining your goals using the interventions.
Some of the interventions might include activating event-consequences to specific triggers such as emotions and behaviors. You will then explore your irrational beliefs such as ideas that have a must, should, terrible, can’t stand, and I’m worthless, for example. You might be asked to then ask yourself these questions: Where is this getting me? Where is the evidence? Is my belief logical? Is the situation really that bad?
Throughout your therapy you will work on developing a new way of acting. This will not only create a new philosophy to deal with irrational thoughts and evaluating them before you choose to react on them, but you also will develop control of your behavior, and manage your problems more effectively creating much positive fallout to all areas of your life. Congratulations, you did hard work, and it paid off!