MY WORK
WHY PEOPLE DO WHAT THEY DO. We humans are born with a "Self" - a core Self that is always there. Inside. It is the Self that comes into this life when we are born and goes somewhere else when we die. It is a place of peace and knowing that we are OK.
No upbringing is pain-free, although some are more painful than others. Childhood stress can be as benign as having to share mom with siblings or as devastating as drug addicted and abusive parents. The more painful the experience, the more negative are our assumptions about our selves, intimacy and what it is to be human.
As we experience life in our family - first with parents, then with significant others - we develop strategies for surviving and thriving. We develop internal (physical, emotional and mental) and external (behavioral) strategies starting from our first moment.
The more painful the experiences, the more drastic our strategies need to be. The stress of sharing mom with siblings might lead to simply going inside and playing by oneself. The stress of extreme parental abuse can lead to major depression and anxiety disorders, addictions, dissociation and other extreme survival strategies.
Although our survival strategies served us in growing up in our family, they also limited, and continue to limit, the expression of our core Self and our experience of peace, aliveness and intimacy. Living our survival strategies can mean living with depression, anxiety, chemical dependency, inability to sustain intimacy, sexual dysfunction, spousal abuse, migraines and other emotional and somatic problems.
That is why people come to therapy.
WHAT HAPPENS IN MY OFFICE. As a psychotherapist, I use my tools and knowledge to help people understand and be aware of their survival strategies and the core Self that is always there, hidden behind the facade of their survival strategies or "ego". I help them to consciously experience life in a new way so that they can modify their survival strategy to be more fully present in life and love.
Although I use several different therapy styles in my work. my central theory and practice is based on the body-mind-spirit interface. The work is a powerful joining of the best elements of Object Relations, Gestalt, yogic and Reichian breath work. In effect, the mind work of psychotherapy is done in concert with full aliveness in the body so that the intervention is experienced in the mind, the emotions, the body and, ultimately, in the core Self.
MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPIST (CALIF.LIC. 7928)