Therapy

******************************PLEASE NOTE: I AM NOT TAKING NEW CLIENTS AT THIS TIME. YOU CAN GO TO www.EMDRIA.org or www.emdr.com and search for other therapists under their find a therapist function. You can also contact your insurance and request a list of EMDR therapists in your area.************************************************************************************

I believe that therapy can help someone get back to a better version of themselves. Life incidents can inadvertently blow someone off their true course. I believe that everyone has strengths and the capacity for self healing. This self healing capacity can be thwarted by the accumulated burdens of life.

A therapist is like a sports coach. Take a moment to think of a great sports figure, someone with natural abilities and good at their sport. Someone perhaps like Michael Jordan, who benefited from coaching not because he did not know what he was doing, but because we can all use someone whose job it is to maximize our own potential, to look at our “game” from the sidelines, to give us feedback from a different perspective, and to remind us of things we already know but may forget to apply at critical times. In this way therapy can not only help with true pathology but can also help to optimize the sense of self and our life navigation.

It is difficult to open up to a complete stranger and yet there can be safety and comfort in knowing that this is a stranger whose sole purpose is to help you improve your life. The fact that it is a stranger also means that they do not have another vested interest in your life. This is why it is important that your therapist is not your friend, a family member, or has any other relationship with you outside of being your therapist. Your therapist is in YOUR corner and is there just for YOU. Therapist have professional ethics and regulations to keep this therapeutic relationship safe, healthy, and beneficial. If you have concerns about your therapist behavior it is recommended that you talk about it with your therapist and/or consider calling their corresponding licensing board. You are investing a lot of time, energy, and money in therapy and you deserve to have a therapist who you feel comfortable with, where you are treated with respect. This does not mean that the therapist is always going to say things that you want to hear. A therapist my respectfully challenge your perceptions or actions when they may be in conflict with your own stated values, goals, or they present a danger to others. (Code of Ethics Privacy and Confidentiality)

Therapy can help you clarify your own values and goals. It can help you gain insight over your reactions to situations, help you identify and develop new coping skills and identify barriers to your own success. It can also be about helping you deal with difficult people or circumstances, to cope with illness in yourself or a family member.

If you already have insight into your issues, and already know the behavior and coping that should be helping you, but you still feel stuck, you still find yourself emotionally or physically reacting to things in a way that you “know better”, then EMDR may be a helpful approach. EMDR helps you to do deeper level work with to bring your automated reactions more in line with what you intellectually already know.

For more information go to www.emdr.com, www.emdria.org, emdr treatment guidelines/published research. To hear an interview about EMDR with Francince Shapiro.