Counseling
and Body-Mind Therapy
Life
is rich,
complex, and diverse. Its circumstances might feel like an
opportunity in one situation or a challenge in another. At times you
may reach a point
where some change or support is needed to gain the fullfillment you
desire.
I offer counseling services
and
therapy
based on a body-mind approach with Core Energetics to assist in moments
like this – to assist you in your drive for fullfillment and well
being. I
describe
more about my approach to counseling and personal growth in the
paragraphs
that follow. I'll answer some of your questions in these lines but
other
questions are likely to remain. If my way of
working sounds interesting and useful for you, I offer an initial
consultation
meeting at no cost so that
you can meet me to assess our fit,
discuss
your situation and get answers to your questions, or help you with a
Portland counselor referral to best serve your needs.
The
Urgency
of Emotional Pain
Much as the physical body
has a
well developed and powerful way of telling us that it is physically
injured or that it is ill with an infection, the emotional body has its
own way to tell us about injury and pain. "Something is
amiss!", the emotional body might warn. "Pay attention to me - don't let this go
on!". Left unheeded, the causes of these emotional pain
messages keep us in a state of longing or disturbance and perhaps even
move
into crisis.
The emotional body is issuing its call, asking for your attention.
We need not live, day after
day, with these difficulties. The change that is
required to move into a place of security and peace is indeed
attainable. True, the counseling process requires courage,
committment, and
even hard work at times, but the benefits in our lives from resolving
our pains are immense and open doors that are not
otherwise imaginable. Counseling with Core Energetics therapy is a
strong step toward this resolution.
To
illustrate some of
the benefits of resolving emotional pain, let's consider an example
related to living a "defended" life. We
have all had difficult moments in our lives where we had
to protect our vulnerable being from some intrusion. If the intrusion
continues, we stay in this protective/defended state and the defense
eventually becomes habitual and unconscious. We generalize the defense
and apply it even in situations where the defense is not needed. The
defense comes to influence our perceptions, feelings, and even our
bodily experience as it becomes more deeply entrenched. The defense
becomes "how I do life" or "how I live." But the defense
reduces our ability to experience life in the "now" and to react in an
authentic way, which reduces our effectiveness and our satisfaction in
life. Taken far enough, the defended life can bring one to a deep pain
and even
create crisis.
In
this example,
opening up the defense and reducing identification with the defense
brings several benefits. The undefended person is more able to be open
and available for genuine contact in relationships and to feel the
satisfying fullfillment in that contact. She is more able to
perceive available options in life that may have been otherwise
disregarded. He is better able to act authentically in life, living and
realizing
his qualities to create a fulfilling life. A felt sense of autonomy can
be found. He can spend more time in
the "now", authentically feeling the pleasure that is to be had in
life. In this example, heeding the call of these pains leads to
meaningful rewards.
My
Counseling Practice - How I Work
I am trained and certified
in
Core Energetics,
a body-mind (or "Somatic") therapy. Additionally, I utilize
other therapeutic methods that I integrate with Core Energetics
body-mind therapy. My work is strongly influenced by the Existential
Humanist perspective. Additionally, I bring Voice Dialog into my Core
Energetics work and principles from Object Relations and Kohut's Self
development also inform my work. I bring together a varied set of
therapeutic tools for counseling to help you to meet
your goals in an effective way.
In my therapy practice
with individuals, couples and groups, I work from the point of view
that every difficulty, every crisis or
painful
moment, has contained within it the possibility for new attainment,
resolution,
and
peace. The longing or pain itself contains information
that can be
used to discern how it operates in your life and how it can be
resolved. I work with you in counseling
to understand your history, including the dynamics in yourself that may
give rise to painful situations. As you come to understand your history
and inner dynamics, you have the opportunity to address your deeper
concerns about your life and make the necessary changes. This could for
example include working to increase your
capacity to deal
with life's demands, or to understand and address aspects
of your defense that cause you difficulty, or coming to
peace with traumatic experiences or losses.
The combination of Core
Energetics
body-mind therapy with other talking therapy methods is an effective
way to gain insight and awareness about your life and to make change in
an effective and lasting way.
Additionally, my work
history includes 25
years
in technology engineering, marketing, and management in my earlier
career. My
accomplishments and experiences in the workplace enrich my work with an
understanding of workplace dynamics, organizational principles and
knowledge of what works in the workplace and how to make positive
change.
SE Portland, OR
Location
My Portland counseling
practice is
located at 819 SE Morrison Street Suite 130, in Portland, OR and I
occasionally offer workshops and
classes in other locations. My counseling practice is open for
individual and
couples counseling. I also offer personal
growth
workshops, movement classes and groups throughout the year. I invite
you to visit my Classes and Groups pages for more
information.
What is Core
Energetics Therapy?
Core Energetics is in the
family
of therapies
that are sometimes called "body centered" since they work with the
structuring
of emotion and thought in the body as well as mentally. As in other
therapeutic
methods, Core Energetic work involves examining beliefs, feelings, and
the details of one's inner world, history, and life situation. Unlike
"talk
therapy"
methods, Core Energetic therapy also addresses the body in examining
how
those
beliefs, feelings, and inner life are sustained and reinforced in the
body, particularly in the muscle systems.
Core Energetics body-mind
therapy exploits the fact that in our earliest years, when we are
learning and developing how we will relate to and be in the world, we
use our bodies to assist in regulating our feelings and to shape our
behaviors. The repeated, habitual patterns of relating, feeling, and
behavior that we develop and rely on will form strongly held ideas and
images in the mind, repeating patterns of feelings in the emotions, and
specific patterns of muscular tension and weakness in the physical
body. These habitual patterns become largely unconscious as we adopt
them and then use them later in life to meet our needs, with varying
degrees of satisfaction and fulfillment.
In the physical work of Core
Energetics, the body can be addressed in many ways to meet your goals
for effective and lasting change. For example, I might use information
about your patterns of muscular tension and weakness to better
understand your ideas and beliefs about life. This body information can
be especially useful if your work involves understanding unconscious
beliefs and ideas that are often difficult to articulate due to their
unconscious nature. In sessions, you might do movement or static poses
under my direction that assist you in putting pressure on and opening
up parts of your being that are blocked from expression. For some
clients, these matters can be difficult to access by talking alone and
the physical work can be useful for opening up the blocked expression.
Or, I might guide you in using awareness of some aspect of your
physical body sensation as a way to facilitate grounding in present
moment awareness. The list of examples can go on since everyone's work
is driven by thier unique life history and goals for
therapy.
My counseling with Core
Energetics therapy can also
address your spiritual
self, as deeply held beliefs and inner life experience are addressed to
enlarge the possibilities in your life. At times it can be helpful to
couple
psychological insight with your spiritual experience when
addressing your inner life experience. Core Energetics therapy is an
effective means of transpersonal counseling.
Wholistic
Therapy - Counseling the Whole Person
By addressing not only the
mind and emotions, but also including the body and even the spiritual
self, the Core Energetics therapy process addresses the whole person.
This therapy
process
focuses on unifying and connecting the body, emotions, mind,
will/intent,
and spiritual self into a unified whole that expresses your complete
reality. Because of this emphasis on unity, which includes the
body
and spiritual self, this approach to personal growth has the potential
to assist persons in developing beyond what is often expected from
counseling
therapies. From this unified place, you can find more consistent
contact with your life essence, which brings peace, security and
the pleasure
that we all long for.
My
work addresses life on all of the levels
where
you exist – body, emotion, mind, will, and spiritual self – to help you
exercise your intention to create what you long for from the complete
person
that you are.
Interested?
More Questions?
Does my way of working
sound useful to you? I offer an initial
consultation
meeting at no cost so that you can meet me to assess our fit,
discuss
your situation and get answers to your questions, or perhaps help you
with a
referral to best serve your needs. I invite you to contact
me in email or by phone (503-963-8600) to get anwers to your
questions or to set up an initial consultation meeting at no cost in my
Portland, OR office.
