Treatment Techniques

Different persons may need different treatment approaches. I offer a variety of therapy techniques to help you achieve your goals, including Cognitive-Behavioral therapy, Psychodynamic therapy, Intensive-Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy, Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Mindfulness training, and Guided Imagery.

COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL THERAPY (CBT)

Cognitive-behavioral therapy focuses on changing the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that negatively impact our lives: mentally, emotionally, and physically. Often, we are unaware of many of the thoughts and beliefs we have, yet they have a tremendous impact on the way we feel. In the context of chronic pain, persons with chronic pain usually have ways of thinking about the pain that intensifies the pain, and maintains it, often at a high level, because of the great amount of fear that these thoughts and beliefs create.

PSYCHODYNAMIC THERAPY

Early life experiences are generally understood to have a great impact on our later lives. These early experiences, often with parents and other caregivers, shape the way we think and feel about ourselves and the quality of relationships we form with others. If we were put down or criticized as a child, for example, we may grow up to criticize ourselves and believe that we are not worth much. Psychodynamic therapy provides insight into these early experiences and how problematic dynamics from our past are continuing to repeat in our present way of thinking, feeling, and acting. This insight can provide a transformative vehicle for change, and freedom from the confusion of the problems we face.

INTENSIVE SHORT-TERM DYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY (ISTDP)

ISTDP focuses on resistances, or defenses, to difficult emotions that are at the core of our current day problems; problems such as anxiety, depression, relationship issues, and chronic pain. These problems are often the result of unconscious emotions and unregulated anxiety. Once these emotions are brought into awareness and experienced, and we learn to regulate our anxiety, the symptoms we are suffering with are no longer necessary. This treatment is intensive and brief, as opposed to more traditional forms of psychodynamic therapy.

EMDR is a fascinating treatment for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, trauma, and more recently has been found to be effective in alleviating chronic pain. The treatment utilizes bilateral stimulation, most often in the form of rapid eye movements; similar to what occurs in dream, or REM, sleep. The bilateral stimulation is used to stimulate the way past events are inaccurately stored in the brain so that these experiences can be adaptively "digested," leading to the resolution of negative emotions, beliefs, and bodily sensations.

ACCEPTANCE & COMMITMENT THERAPY (ACT)

A core focus in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, is that suffering is due to our struggle with and avoidance of uncomfortable thoughts and feelings; like, for example, anxiety. ACT encourages us to open up and learn how to experience these thoughts and feelings, rather than fighting and resisting them. In ACT, instead of spending time “tugging the rope” with our mind, emphasis is placed on making life meaningful by acting on our values, or in other words, taking committed action toward what’s important to us.