Therapeutic Approach

It feels to me very difficult to explain what happens in psychotherapy. There are no ‘usual’ sessions, and I have found that the way I work shifts significantly from one person to another. There are perhaps a few common elements I can allude to.

First, we both look with a lot of curiosity at who you are in the context in which your difficulties arise. We look at what happened to you, how it affected you, and what you had to do to survive. I invite you speak about what thoughts, pictures, and sensations are occurring for you as we speak about areas of your life that hold significance for you. You let whatever memories are popping up in your mind arrive, as if you are simply watching. This is associated with what is known as drishtabhav in the Vipassana tradition. This helps us discover together your characteristic ways of thinking, being and responding – the ways we don’t even know of because we are always immersed in them, like fish in water. It also lets us get in touch with our emotional world, and build our capacity for feeling our feelings fully instead of staying disconnected from parts of us.

Second, we heal past wounds, particularly using EMDR and IFS. Suppose, as we are speaking about your bad boss and your mind drifts to images of your father screaming at you as a child (as an aside, this is a very common incident type among my male patients). We will ‘reprocess’ that memory together and heal the wound caused to the younger version of you (or younger ‘part’ of you), so it doesn’t continue to impact your present.

Third, simply put, I offer care. Through such offer of care, I hope that our relationship and weekly cadence of sessions provides a secure base for you to venture forth into difficult areas of life. Many people are looking forward to such care. For others, it is a jarring experience to be cared for; many times, it is associated with feelings of shame at ‘dependency’. All is welcome in psychotherapy.

I am also sharing below more about the three approaches I use.