What happens to you affects you.
How you respond changes everything.
Psychotherapy for Change & Resilience
Major life changes — whether a career shift, loss, relationship transition, or health challenge — can bring significant anxiety and stress. Psychotherapy facilitates depth and insight work as well as practical strategies to simplify your life. Techniques like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and IFS (Internal Family Systems) can help you process and understand your experiences, making them easier to manage. I integrate traditional psychotherapeutic methods and cognitive-behavioral interventions with innovative and transformative approaches to guide you toward your goals. Treatment is tailored to facilitate change and foster resilience.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy views individuals as a collection of different parts that all work together. These parts have their own thoughts, feelings, and motivations, which are shaped by past experiences, relationships, and beliefs. Sometimes, these parts can become extreme under duress, leading to disruptions in psychological processes. Overworking, over-reacting, or numbing out are examples of extreme part reactions. IFS therapy aims to help individuals recognize, understand, and integrate these parts, with the goal of unifying them under the guidance of their core Self. By integrating the different parts of oneself, individuals can increase self-awareness and strengthen their relationship with their inner Self, leading to a sense of wholeness and deeper ease.
IFS therapy can help individuals develop essential skills such as self-compassion, emotional regulation, and communication skills. By fostering these skills, individuals can enhance their personal growth.
Want to know more about IFS therapy?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a type of counseling that helps people deal with difficult memories. It's based on the idea that upsetting events can get "stuck" in the brain and cause problems like flashbacks, anxiety, and sadness.
During EMDR sessions, a counselor helps the person think about the upsetting event while focusing on something like eye movements or sounds. This is meant to help the person get used to the memory and make it less upsetting. The goal is to help the person develop new ways of thinking and behaving about the upsetting event.
EMDR has been shown to help with different mental health issues, like PTSD, anxiety, sadness, and grief. It usually involves 8-12 sessions, but it might take longer for people with a more complex history.
Want to know more about EMDR therapy?
The course of treatment:
Initial Call
Initial calls are to determine if we are a good fit. They generally last about 15 minutes. If my practice is a good fit for us both, I will mail you the initial paperwork, which will also involve some self-reported diagnostic assessments.
1.
Initial intake Session
The initial intake session involves reviewing your paperwork, completing basic assessment tools, and gathering a personal and family history. Together, we'll set goals and begin developing a treatment plan. Please note that the intake process may span more than one session, as arriving at a diagnosis — which guides the most effective treatment approach — can take time.
2.
Follow up sessions
New clients typically meet weekly for at least the first 8 weeks. This consistent contact builds rapport and trust, establishing the therapeutic alliance essential for meaningful progress. In some cases, a modified structure may be arranged. As symptoms improve, we can reduce frequency gradually until your treatment goals have been met.
3.
Closure
As symptoms feel resolved, we plan to conclude treatment. We review what was helpful and discuss resources to help you maintain gains after treatment concludes.
4.
FAQs
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IFS and EMDR are both supported by empirical evidence.
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IFS therapy helps people deal with parts of their mind causing trauma. It creates safe connections with these parts, freeing up energy from defense mechanisms. EMDR helps reprocess traumatic memories using bilateral stimuli. It deactivates distressing experiences, so you still remember what happened, but it's no longer overwhelming. Both interventions work well and compliment each other in treatment.
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The decision regarding which intervention to choose is made during the intake process. Sometimes, people specifically request EMDR or IFS as they have heard about these interventions and believe they are a good fit for them. In some cases, IFS is used to support the EMDR treatment process.
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IFS and EMDR can be used in a powerful combination for addressing trauma and other mental health concerns. Following IFS, EMDR therapy can be used to desensitize traumatic memories and reduce the distress associated with them.