At the heart of psychodynamic therapy is the belief that our present beliefs, behaviors and emotions are deeply rooted in early life experiences and relationship dynamics.  Some of the most important work is on developing insight into these connections between the past and present.  In this style of treatment, individuals also work to connect with thoughts, desires, motivations, and emotions that may have been out of awareness because of how painful they might be to the person, and how unacceptable they are considered by others. Psychodynamic therapy provides an important foundation to my work, and is an important starting point for developing insight into the connection between past and present.

People often wonder why they find patterns emerge in their relationships and the types of experiences they have in life. Insight into our patterns is necessary in understanding the “why” but doesn’t help as much with the “how.”  EMDR targets the core negative beliefs individuals have about themselves, and often have had from a very young age.  These negative beliefs are the story we developed to help us understand why challenging, stressful, and painful things happen to us.  A story, even if it puts unfair blame on ourselves for our experience, can help us survive initially by giving one a sense of control over the experience and how to avoid it in the future.  However, as we outgrow these periods in our lives, we can find that we are often still carrying around negative beliefs about ourselves and our relationships with other even with those negative experiences long in the past.  When we bring those negative beliefs with us into our present lives, it distorts our lens through which we understand our experience, and often leaves us experiencing old suffering again and again, triggered by present day challenges.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy, or CBT, is an approach that facilitates change through; a deeper understanding of the connection between events, our personal beliefs and thought patterns and distortions, and how they all impact behavior.  The environment contributing to behavior, the thoughts and beliefs sustaining the behavior, and the consequences of the behavior may all be targets for change depending on which is most appropriate for the individual.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, builds on CBT and has been found particularly effective in facilitating change by teaching mindfulness techniques and distress tolerance strategies to improve an individual’s self regulation and lessen their suffering.  At the heart of DBT is the concept of “yes, AND,” (instead of “yes, BUT”) meaning, often two seemingly opposite ideas can both be true, such as “individuals may be the source of their problem AND they are responsible for solving them anyway.” Another important dialectic in DBT is the belief that individuals are doing the best that they can, AND, they need to do better and be more motivated for their own change.  DBT targets mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness skills to support individuals in creating changes in dysfunctional interpersonal patterns and improve management of their own emotions.

When many people think about trauma, they think of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which may evoke images of war veterans struggling with flashbacks, or survivors of natural disasters experiencing nightmares, reactivity and avoidance of things that remind them of their trauma.  What if instead of a single incident trauma, such as exposure to natural disasters, violence or the threat of death, an individual experienced multiple chronic stressors in their environment and relationships throughout stages of their life?  Trauma is not just caused by the threat of death, but threats to our emotional safety and our identity.   In addition to the nightmares, heightened anxiety and avoidance that is characteristic of PTSD, individuals with chronic trauma may experience “emotional reexperiencing” or experiencing the same emotional response and pain to stressors in their current environment and relationships.  Individuals with a complicated trauma history may have built beautiful, successful lives, but still find themselves struggling with feeling emotionally unsafe, or like the “past is repeating itself” leading to avoidance in relationships with others.  Trauma survivors typically develop resilience and protective behaviors, including avoidance, that they find while initially effective, are no longer serving them and may even be an obstacle from true healing and improving their quality of life.  When familiar, painful dynamics from the past seem to emerge in present relationships, it can leave people feeling uneasy, or triggered, and wondering, “is it my fault?” or “why do people continue to treat me this way?”  Developing a comprehensive understanding of how trauma is impacting an individual’s life, and working through these traumas with strategies from CBT, DBT and processing with EMDR,  people find that they can recapture joy, experience more self-love, free themselves from negative beliefs about ourselves that perpetuate suffering and improve self confidence and a sense of efficacy in navigating their lives.  Simply, we will work together to support you in your healing journey from surviving, to truly living and thriving in the past.