GROWTH PRACTICE
Therapy is often considered a practice we go to when we are having trouble and want to fix or heal ourselves. While this is one of the principal goals of therapy, the healing that happens in therapy isn’t just a matter of fixing, but of growth. In fact, periods of struggle and difficulty can be some of the richest periods of growth. And while healing is one form of growth, inspiration and expansion is another and therapy can also be a practice in inspiration. The field of psychology contiinues to learn more about what it is to be human, how to work with who we are and how to make meaning of our experience. There are ways of living that lead to a deep, more full life and more related, fulfilling, growth-oriented relationships. Exploring beyond or through specific issues to reach these ways of living reaches levels of therapeutic practice that seem to deserve a name other than one associated with fixing something that is not working, thus the name growth practice.
NURTURANCE
One of the ways I work is to help people explore their deep feelings without being overwhelmed by them. This process often involves learning self-nurturing, a skill that we often have not developed. While we place emphasis on nurturance for children, we often make the assumption that as adults nurturing is not important or is even indulgent. Our deepest feelings about ourselves and the world tend to be instilled when we are children. These voices and feelings that we then carry with us continue to need to be nurtured, even in adulthood. One of my goals is to help clients both accept the sides of themselves that need nurturing and find strong nurturing aspects of themselves that can care for these voices and feelings. Learning to accept our need for nurturance reduces sadness and leads to feelings of meaning as it this raw, real, poignant side of us that gives us our sense of inspiration. Finding our strong nurturer side reduces sadness and leads to feelings of meaning as it is this side that gives us a sense of efficacy and a sense of being surrounded by a warm, supportive world. Once we have shifted our connection to ourselves, our connection with the external world begins to change. We can turn outward and offer our understanding, our poignancy, our inspiration as well as our strength, our empathy and our support to the world around us. This allows us to participate in the process of giving and receiving that is an important part of being human.
RECEPTIVITY
Why does changing the repeated patterns of our emotions and actions seem so difficult? Part of the answer can be found in our very nature. In order to survive we evolved to be sensitized to potential danger. The result is that we have what is called by neuroscience a “negativity bias,” which is a tendency to notice and remember negative thoughts, emotions and events much more easily than positive, as the assumption of danger helps us be ready for danger. This means that self-protective responses that helped us at some point, but that no longer serve us, are not so easily un-learned. The neural pathways in our brains are exactly that, pathways, and it’s always easier to walk through the woods on a path than off, so we keep taking the same paths, doing the same things unless we more fully NOTICE and REMEMBER new and potentially positive input, but to do that we need to make a practice of noticing, something that in neuroscience has been termed, “taking in the good.” We also need to learn to INTERRUPT and REDIRECT our patterns and processes, our anxieties, ruminations, and reactions. This is all part of a need to be RECEPTIVE to change in order to make it happen. While we may be consciously receptive to change, the emotional/visceral part of our minds are often self-protectively relying on known responses and closed to new possibilities. When clients are interested I use a variety of techniques to help them find a place of peace so they can loosen their grip on what they know about themselves and their world. From there we find aspects of them that don’t depend on their patterned responses to the external world, but rather on a deeper internal sense of self and peace. These techniques include guided imagery, somatic psychology and Emotional Evocation Therapy, at technique combining music with guided imagery and cognitive reframing.
MODERN LIFE
Navigating modern life in a way that reduces distraction and fosters depth, meaning and connection has become a challenge for all of us. The multitasking techniques of work, the amount of perpetually renewing information available to us, the multi-directional method required for our minds interact with computers – many aspects of modern life lead to short attention spans, short-term gratification and a mildly (or not so mildly) ungrounded stressed experience of our everyday lives with a sense that we are being pushed along into the future without a sense of why or of developing a life that is deeply satisfying.
INNER EXPERIENCE
In a society that has become increasingly externally focused we often look for ourselves by looking to others for our reflection and value. This search in the external world for what lies in our deeper, inner experience will always fail to satisfy us and, ironically, will maintain a distance between ourselves and others, as an external search for self can only experience the external world as a mirror. While therapy can elicit our deeper, inner experience, it is from this experience and the satisfaction that comes of knowing this aspect of ourselves that we are able to look outward and feel the satisfaction of knowing the world and the people around us.
INSPIRATION
In creating a space outside of the functional narratives of our daily lives, one of my goals is to focus both on immediate, visceral experience and on the grand, mythic narratives in which we often forget to place ourselves. We are beings who create, who question, who follow curiosity and passion, who fall in love, yet from our functional modes we tend to focus on o
ur concerns and anxieties around what we do. This happens because our experience is optimized to focus on functionality and survival, but it is not our only option. We have all had inspiring moments in which we found ourselves surrounded by both more immediate and grander senses of life. We often assume that these moments will be few and far between, but this assumption is based on our daily experience of consciousness. Through good therapy I believe it is possible to elicit states beyond this functional, daily experience. Ultimately, both our inner lives and the functional aspects of our lives improve from our increase in creativity, perspective, problem solving abilities and inspiration.
PERSONAL | COLLECTIVE
Especially in times such as these, but really in all times, I feel it is important to be explicit about about the connection between the personal and the collective. Therapy work happens with the individual and therefore can lend itself to a somewhat insular work that doesn’t involve the larger world. To my mind this misses one of the most important aspects of further levels of development and happiness – our sense of connection to others and the collective. As a social species many of our fears, pains and reactions relate to others and to our beliefs around our place within the group. Working with this is one of the essential human tasks and one of the essential human opportunities. How we see and treat othersis inextricably linked to how we see and treat ourselves.
The philosopher and social critic Cornell West wrote “Justice is what love looks like in public.” Love has a personal manifestation, but it also has a societal manifestation. And love, even love that seems deeply personal, deeply involves equality. A society is a collection of individuals. Individual and societal change are interconnected. Learning to love ourselves better and, as a result those around us, creates ripple effects that lead to equality is an act of loving better not only others, but ourselves. I believe therapy is best done from the perspective of working on universal growth through individuals. We are all interconnected, after all.
RESEARCH & PRACTICE
This is a good time for psychology and psychotherapy. Our understanding of how the mind, body, thoughts and emotions work has dramatically increased over time. Through continuing research we have been determining what past and present therapeutic techniques work best, as well as creating new methods. Neuropsychology, behavioral psychology and experimental psychology are all contributing ideas as to how we can go beyond our habitual repetition of thoughts and behaviors to better address our challenges and find ways of being that allow more choice, more growth and more happiness. This is true for both our experience of ourselves and how we relate to others and the world.
I am always increasing my knowledge of current research into the mind and the mind-body relationship. As a therapist I bring the lessons learned through current research into my practice. I attend trainings on new ideas in neuropsychology, individual and couples therapeutic practices and I conduct study and supervision groups with other therapists to incorporate what we are learning into specific work with clients. I consider my growth in knowledge and understanding essential to what I have to provide as a therapist.
ATMOSPHERE
Setting and atmosphere are important and effective elements of therapy, yet they are often neglected. In addition to my practice and research in psychology I am an artist. The effects of atmosphere on mood and experience have always interested me and I have made such effects a part of my research. I have also made atmosphere an important element in my practice. In choosing and designing my practice settings I have considered lighting, materials and space in choosing colors, furniture, layout and art. My spaces are designed to foster warmth, calm, clarity, expansiveness and creativity. I draw in natural elements to my spaces in order to foster a grounded, vibrant experience.
ONGOING INTEGRATION
In service of formulating of new perspectives, possibilities and actions, I often give between-session assignments or exercises. I see the times between or after sessions as particularly effective times for integration of what one learns in sessions. Many treatments involve isolated one hour experiences with little thought or emotion devoted to them outside of that hour. Like other forms of learning, developing new perspective and abilities requires attention and reinforcement.