Skill Set

Narrative Therapy 

Simply a particular form of talk therapy on the face of it, Narrative Therapy involves a new way of looking at one's "problems," a way that often enables a person to find new zeal with which to rally against them. Narrative Therapy is profoundly non-pathologizing, and is seen as an antidote to "problem saturation." Narrative Therapy also helps reduce a sense of shame that a person may have about the problems.

Hypnosis

Hypnosis is like walking into your own unconscious, as if you could walk into a dream. The wisdom and guidance that one finds there come from inside, so one feels as if s/he has healed him/herself. Relaxation may occur in ways that people have infrequently experienced before. Pain reduction is a definite possibility for numerous physical conditions. Hypnosis is great also for tapping into one’s inner resources, and I only "suggest" what people have requested me to.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

This method, thirty years old already, is becoming more and more familiar to the general population. The idea that moving one's eyes back and forth in order to reduce post traumatic stress may still be greeted with skepticism by some. But if you take into account that the amygdala, the part of the brain that assesses threat and therefore regulates our level of anxiety, is well connected  to the visual cortex, where we actually see,  it may become plausible. I am also trained in Robert Miller's model, in which a slight variation of EMDR is used to treat addictions.

Natural Processing

EMDR meets Gestalt therapy. In this model, the bilateral brain stimulation used in EMDR is accomplished through the tactile sense, and the client is invited to show up honestly from one moment to the next, as in Gestalt therapy. In my opinion, there is something special about this new tool, and I am excited to begin using it, and pleased with the results.

Brainspotting

The other, besides NP, method to emerge in recent years that is a spinoff of EMDR. The name is unfortunate; it sounds at best very technical and at worst downright icky. But, like NP, it can produce a special kind of trauma resolution in which the client has a much enhanced sense of trust in self, besides being less affected by the trauma. Brainspotting has a screening procedure which can indicate whether it is likely to help with a particular trauma or not, increasing the likelihood of being effective when it is appropriate. 

Primal therapy

An excellent way to resolve early trauma especially. I have teen trained indirectly in this challenging modality through Janov's Primal Center's Legacy Program. 

"Just talking"

I have heard people express in very specific and personal ways how they have benefited from talking about their issues, and I am no longer dismissive of talk therapy if that is what a person wants or needs.

Norton model of play therapy

Byron Norton had an amazing ability to discern metaphorical meanings in a child's play and developed a model of therapy that is far more than "just playing."