My approach to trauma therapy is grounded in a three-phase model and uses bottom-up and top-down processing
Sometimes achieving happiness requires sharing details and processing early experiences. We can often resolve current difficulties by working in present-time without exploring memories of past events. Sufficient safety, stability and both the capacity and willingness to endure difficult emotional experiences are necessary before we can fully process traumatic memories. While safety and stability always come first, we may explore our larger life while processing traumatic memories.
Building on our strengths is far more therapeutic than focusing on our wounds
I start with getting to know you, your strengths and concerns, and then bring into awareness where you are challenged without making your difficulties the focus of therapy. We establish a safe and stable connection before processing challenging feelings, thoughts and beliefs. We only dig around in the past when it helps resolve issues in the present.
When your nervous system is dysregulated it affects how you feel and think
When your identity as a person is stressed, it affects how you feel in your heart and body. We dance with this complex relationship of body and mind using mindful awareness and good old common sense.
The strategies that helped us feel safe as children became obstacles to our happiness as adults
By exploring what gets in the way of what we say we want, we discover those adaptive strategies. And once we can see them, we can begin to make choices about using them.
My approach brings self-regulation to a resource-oriented, non-regressive, psychodynamically informed non-pathologizing approach that emphasizes connection to the parts of ourselves that are organized, coherent and functional
Three Phases of Healing
Phase 1:
Build Safety and Stability
Healing Happens in the Context of Safety and Stability
The goal of phase one is an acceptable quality of everyday life. This means that we experience an underlying sense of emotional regulation despite the normal ups and downs of life. This first step is to provide a reliable container from which to operate. Phase one lays the foundation for effective trauma healing and should not be rushed or skipped.
Phase 2:
Process Memories
Processing and Desensitization of Traumatic Memories is the Goal of Phase Two.
Working from the stable foundation established in phase one, these memories will likely stimulate reactivity that is tolerable and are less likely to induce regressive states. Being grounded in the safety of the present moment makes processing the memories manageable. In many cases the actual processing of traumatic memories is either very limited or entirely unnecessary.
Phase 3:
Integrate Into Life
Phase Three is the Container for Integrating Success and Increased Capacity into Everyday Life.
Integrating therapeutic progress into everyday life is the focus of phase three, yet if therapy is effective, it should be a constant element throughout the process. Success is applying the skills and insights from our sessions to your daily life.
Bottom-Up Repair of Early Trauma
Traditional psychotherapy focuses on talking about thoughts and feelings and, for the most part, ignores body-based experience. We now understand that trauma affects both mind and body and contemporary approaches have adapted to work with both.
We speak of working top-down and bottom-up. Top-down refers to focusing on thoughts, emotions, sensations, and then the deeper aspects of the body. Working bottom-up refers to starting with attention to the body and then emotions and thoughts. Successful trauma repair uses both bottom-up and top-down practices to address the complexities of identity and disorganized physiology.
The short video below provides an excellent description of the consequences of early developmental trauma on brain development and some of what must happen to repair the early insults and develop new habits and perspectives.
