Notes on My Core Therapeutic Orientations

Relational Cultural Theory

Relational-cultural theory (RCT) evolved out of the work of Jean Baker Miller and post-modern feminism. RCT is founded on a core understanding that the need for healthy interpersonal connections is a basic need and requirement for healthy human development. RCT considers a person's relationships to family and community, their social locations, and their relationship to larger social and cultural systems as integral aspects in their growth and development. RCT considers many problems and sources of malaise to be rooted in imbalances or abuses of power, in experiences of oppression, and in experiences of relational harm and disconnection. As a therapist who integrates RCT into practice, this means I will work to build mutual trust and connection in our therapeutic relationship. Our work will be based on consensual agreements and collaboration. I will lean on our therapeutic relationship as a space for insight, challenge and growth. I will consider your social and cultural locations and the context of your daily life. I will name and validate lived experiences of oppression and provide compassionate non-judgmental space for processing them. Together we will explore how your relationships have shaped your past and your present. We may explore how you consciously and subconsciously implement strategies of connection and disconnection. And we may explore how to seek repair in relationships, how to define or redefine your interpersonal boundaries, and how to cultivate growth-fostering relationships.

Ecopsychology

Ecopsychology seeks to explore and understand human psychology through a lens that acknowledges the innate and evolutionary interconnectedness and interdependence between humans and all life on earth. Just as humans need healthy interpersonal connections to other humans, healthy connection and relationship to plants, animals, land, and ecosystems are also necessary for healthy human development. The lens of ecopsychology validates that the human experience of attachment and relationality extend beyond the human realm to include emotional and somatic attachments and relationships to the more than human. Relationship to the more than human can be a source of kinship and belonging, and it can also be a source of rupture, loss, or trauma. Ecotherapy is an integrative therapeutic approach grounded in the principles of ecopsychology. Together, we may incorporate plants, animals, landscapes, and other earthly elements into therapy in a vast array of applications as a third medium or partner in the therapeutic process towards recovering a sense of connectedness, wholeness and relational embodiment. Ecotherapy sessions will be tailored to meet your unique needs and interests, may occur indoors or outdoors, and may involve both indirect and direct contact with natural elements as well as imaginal or metaphorical contact.  

Somatic Psychology/Psychotherapy

Somatic Psychotherapy is an integrative approach, informed by somatic psychology and interpersonal neurobiology, that considers the whole human being as an interconnected and interdependent mind-body eocsystem. A person's thoughts, feelings, sensations, attitudes, and belief systems all interact with and have an impact on their physical well-being, and all of these are also shaped by and interact with external family, social, cultural, and environmental factors. The present dominant culture is one of power-over dynamics, of separation, disconnection, disembodiment and exploitation. Many people spend a majority of their lives disembodied, which can manifest in feeling dissociated, numb, feeling like your body is an abject object that doesn’t belong to you, that isn’t safe to exist in, and that may carry a lot of pain and discomfort that you may seek distraction from through a multitude of behaviors. As a somatic psychotherapist, I incorporate trauma-sensitive mindfulness, and breath and body resources and practices that can aid in the journey of coming back into an embodied state, into a feeling of being at home in the body, and into a state of present moment awareness that facilitates recovery from traumatic experiences, enhances a sense of empowerment and choice, and that invites an opening to a vibrant full-spectrum life.

Somatic & Attachment Focused EMDR

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an extensively researched, internationally recognized and practiced, effective psychotherapy method proven to help people of all ages recover from trauma and other distressing life experiences, including PTSD, anxiety, depression, domestic violence, intimate partner violence, sexual abuse or assault, sleep disturbance, grief and loss, climate disasters, and more. EMDR is endorsed by the World Health Organization, the American Psychiatric Association, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

While your brain and body has a natural capacity to recover from traumatic memories and events, some traumatic experiences may not self-resolve, which can result in a perpetual state of distressful activation. When distress from a disturbing event lingers, the upsetting images, thoughts, and emotions may create an overwhelming feeling of being back in that moment, or of being frozen in time in a felt-sense state of imminent danger. Frozen or stuck trauma may manifest as intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, nightmares, fear, panic, anxiety, avoidant behaviors, emotional numbness, intense anger, reactivity, rigid thinking patterns, physical pain, sleep disturbance, and more. EMDR therapy is designed to assist the brain in reprocessing past traumatic experiences that are causing distress in your present day life, freeing your nervous system's natural healing process to engage and metabolize unprocessed trauma so you can move forward responding to the present without intrusive interference from the past.

I received EMDRIA approved Basic Training in Somatic and Attachment Focused EMDR (S.A.F.E.), developed by Deb Kennard as an adapted version of EMDR and an integrated therapeutic approach founded in the Adaptive Information Processing Model (AIP), integrating trauma-sensitive mindfulness, compassion, somatic and emotional states and resources, and attachment and relational patterns into EMDR therapy. I received EMDRIA approved Advanced Training, Education and Consultation with the Beyond Healing Institute, with further integration of Somatic Psychology and Interpersonal Neurobiology with the basic tenets of EMDR therapy. As an EMDRIA Certified Therapist, I continue to pursue continuing education and professional development.