Therapeutic Approaches
My Therapeutic approach integrates several different models of therapy. The therapeutic model used with each session/client depends on the client’s goal and whether I am working with an individual, couple or family. The Therapeutic models listed below are the models that guide my approach.
Family Systems Therapy:
Family Systems Therapy is a form of therapy that helps individuals resolve their problems in the context of their family units. Each family member works together with the others to better understand how their individual actions affect each other and the family unit as a whole. One of the most important premises of family systems therapy is that what happens to one member of a family happens to everyone in the family. Family members explore their individual roles within the family, and learn ways to support and help each other with the goal of restoring family relationships and rebuilding a healthy family system.
Families in conflict, as well as couples and individuals with concerns related to their families of origin, can benefit from family systems therapy.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
Emotionally Focused Therapy focuses on the ways in which our interpersonal interactions get organized into patterns and cycles.
The goal of EFT is to work toward what’s called “secure attachment.” That is, the idea that each partner can provide a sense of security, protection, and comfort for the other, and can be available to support their partner in creating a positive sense of self and the ability to effectively regulate their own emotions. EFT is about restructuring the relational patterns/cycles and developing an understanding of why and how we get into those patterns in the first place so that we can interrupt them.
The goal of EFT is to create a new sense of self and a new way of relating to your partner, which in turn, evokes new responses from that partner.
Narrative Therapy:
Narrative Therapy is a form of psychotherapy that seeks to help patients identify their values and the skills associated with them. It provides the patient with knowledge of their ability to live these values so they can effectively confront current and future problems. The therapist seeks to help the patient co-author a new narrative about themselves by investigating the history of those values. Narrative Therapy aims to help clients see how they are the experts regarding their own lives and how they can uncover the dreams, values, goals, and skills that define who they are, separate from their problems.
Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT):
Solution-focused brief therapy is an evidenced-based psychotherapy approach. SFBT is future-focused, goal-directed, and focuses on solutions, rather than on the problems that brought clients to seek therapy.
SFBT works best when there is a specific problem to be solved. Solution-focused therapy puts problem-solving at the forefront of the conversation and can be particularly useful for clients who aren’t suffering from major mental health issues and need help solving a particular problem (or problems).
Somatic Therapy:
Somatic therapy explores how the body expresses experiences , applying mind-body healing to aid with trauma recovery. Somatic therapy aims to help clients move out of the fight/flight/freeze response and into a higher-functioning mode where they can manage their emotions and think more clearly. Through developing awareness of the mind-body connection and using specific interventions, somatic therapy helps to release the emotions that remain in a patient’s body from these past negative experiences. The goal is to help free the patient from what is preventing them from fully engaging in their lives.