MINDFULNESS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY
Depression and anxiety are states of being where people feel trapped in their painful thoughts and feelings. Cognitive Behavioral Therapies (CBT) have been used to successfully treat depression and anxiety for decades. Mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral psychotherapies such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) help people learn strategies to live life more in the present and more focused on important values and goals. People learn to engage with and overcome painful thoughts and feelings through acceptance and mindfulness techniques and to develop self-compassion and flexibility. The effectiveness of mindfulness practice comes from the way it trains you to extract yourself from the whirlpool of your own pains. It’s a lifeline for those swirling around and around in depression and anxiety, allowing you to find some solid ground.
Mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral psychotherapy is an effective treatment of:
- Anxiety,
- Panic attacks
- Depression
- PTSD
- Stress and other problems.
Benefits you can expect:
- Relief from being trapped in redundant, oppressive thoughts and feelings
- Softening of depression and anxiety and preventing relapse
- Trains the brain away from a habit of perpetually re-experiencing anxious and depressed states
- Builds habits of acceptance and allowance of experience
- Evens out moods
- Live life more in the present and decrease suffering
- Be more focused on important values and goals
- Increase self-compassion and increased flexibility
- Build life-enhancing patterns and behavior
- Embracing life and feel everything life has to offer
Click here for more information and on outcome research for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
INSIGHT OR PSYCHODYNAMIC THERAPY
Insight or psychodynamic therapy offers you the opportunity to understand the underlying dynamics that keep you stuck in destructive patterns and limit your choices of behaviors and expressions. As awareness grows, you are freed to choose healthier behaviors and align with more authentic ways of being. In this process I support, invite, and assist you in developing compassion, acceptance, creativity and the capacity to listen and understand your deepest heart and unfulfilled dreams, and longings. The relationship between patient and therapist builds over time and is one of trust and deep connection that allows the patient to reveal his or her inner world through fantasies and emotional responses to the therapist and therapeutic process.
Benefits you can expect:
- Development of a more authentic way of being
- Increased ability to trust
- Increased sense of autonomy and confidence
- Positive changes in your relationship with yourself, your loved ones, and therefore your world
- Increased capacity for intimacy
- Increased ability to accept and adapt to change.
- Increased capacity for creativity
- Increased choices of behavior and expression
- Reduction in suffering
People best suited for psychodynamic therapy are often those who are curious about how their mind works. Qualities that are helpful in this type of therapy are a capacity for self-reflection, a desire to know oneself better, and a willingness to tolerate and explore vulnerable and uncomfortable feelings. A sense of humor is also helpful!
Psychodynamic therapy is not usually brief treatment. It often takes time to establish the trust and intimacy necessary to face and work through the most painful and vulnerable parts of ourselves leading to deep and lasting growth and change.