Since our responses are automatic, we easily miss the freedom we have to choose how to respond. And not only that — We can come to discover that hidden in our suffering are tools and insights that can radically change how we experience ourselves and others. Sometimes traumatic memories inhibit us from feeling this freedom; at other times our own beliefs get in the way. But we can experience this freedom, and I’m here to help you learn how.
Although I am a generalist and work with all sorts of people and concerns, a have a special place in my heart for clients with chronic pain. With chronic pain in particular, until quite recently we did not have a deep enough understanding about how pain is created in the body, brain, and mind, in order to provide a rationale to guide effective treatment. Now we do.
I use a new, scientifically validated method, called Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), a chronic pain treatment that targets the brain, via the mind. After undergoing treatment, 98% of patients improved, and 66% were pain-free or nearly pain-free.
I myself suffered from chronic pain for almost 30 years before I successfully used the method that I now teach.
This method targets the lens through which we sense and feel our mind and body — safe or unsafe? Adjusting this lens changes key brain structures that operate outside of our awareness. We focus on the cause and not the symptoms.
When we change how we are experiencing something, its meaning changes for us. What was scary and disturbing is no longer so. Once that happens, the nervous system is able to let go and the stuck imbalance can naturally resolve itself.
I’ve also been trained in EMDR and use related methods called The Flash Technique and Deep Brain Reprocessing to drain the reactivity from traumatic memories without having to relive them.
Finally, although I tend to by excited by philosophy, my therapy superpower, according to my clients, is that I provide a very safe place to feel.
And while I study and train in many forms of psychotherapy, centering variously on thought, emotion and behavior — as an overarching model, I follow the work of Dr. Jeffery Smith, a brilliant psychiatrist whose interest in universal change processes and Affect Avoidance Model cuts to the root of the distress that brings clients into therapy.