Life can be tough, even tragic. Maybe you have experienced this through a tragedy, a broken relationship, a loss of a job, or you’re just in a funk for whatever reason. All you know is that you want things to be better than they are now.
Taking care of your mental and emotional health can be one of the most rewarding things you can do for yourself. You have the capacity to make it through the challenges that may arise. Reaching out for help is the first step to finding the healing that you are looking for.
I bring an attachment based, emotion focused, experiential approach as the main way to work with clients. Specifically, I use Emotion Focused Therapy for couples (EFT) approach and Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) in my therapy work, both of which have been shown to be highly effective approaches to therapy. Being able to connect with our emotional/relational self to work through the pains and traumas that we have experienced with a well trained, caring therapist can help undo the hurt that many of us live with today. It is my goal that you experience me as an empathetic, non-judgmental person that provides you with the insight and care that you need.
About AEDP
I am trained in Level 1 of AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy). If you want to learn more about AEPD, click here. The brief explanation is that AEDP is a form of therapy that is a relational and experiential approach which seeks to create healing emotional experiences for the client. Some people might think about therapy as someone asking you about your relationship with your parents or something similar. AEDP is different in several ways, but here is an excerpt from the blog of writer and therapist Hilary Jacobs-Hendel that explains what is different about AEDP from some other forms of therapy:
Experiential work like AEDP is therapeutic — healing and transformational — for many reasons. Here are four:
- Experiential work actively cultivates a mindful, non-judgmental, compassionate stance that helps a person become aware of their inner experiences and changes the brain for the better.
- Experiential work helps people get in touch with their core emotions (sadness, fear, anger, joy, excitement, disgust, etc.). The purpose is to name the emotions we feel and to learn to use our emotions for wellbeing, instead of being controlled by them, or burying them, which leads to problems.
- Experiential work diminishes anxieties and other symptoms in predictable, reproducible ways, which is why it is considered healing-oriented as opposed to insight-oriented psychotherapy.
- Experiential work teaches people to become their own therapist, giving them practical life skills to work with their emotions and the emotions of others in ways that are constructive.
About EFT
Emotion Focused Therapy for Couples was developed by Dr. Sue Johnson with Dr. Leslie Greenburg. In EFT for Couples, we will want to understand what patterns of interaction that the couples tends to fall into, also known as their cycle. When the therapist is able to help the couple identify what their cycle is (what emotions and reactions are being triggered), then new ways of communicating and building empathy for each other can happen. The work in EFT is also Attachment based, meaning that we all have a way that we tend look for attachment with people that we want to place our trust. When we have healthy attachment, we typically feel more calm and secure. That is the kind of attachment that EFT is helping to build in the relationship. A healthy dependency upon one another that allows each person to show up for one another in the relationship.