Services
In my practice I work with life’s discomforts, difficulties, problems and predicaments. The focus is on the present and also addresses undigested issues and aftershocks from the past. I work with individuals, couples and families.
• Anxiety: Human beings don’t do well with uncertainty for very long, and yet there’s a lot of uncertainty in life. How to stop trying to control the uncontrollable and live a good life anyway?
• Stress: When faced with too much stress we have only three options: fight effectively, flee effectively, or seek effective protection – otherwise we make ourselves sick. “It’s not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it” (Hans Selye).
• Depression: One definition of depression is “oppression + lack of expression = depression.” When you give voice to your experience you may discover what’s weighing you down, and a shift can begin.
• Self-esteem: Feeling ashamed, being excessively hard on yourself, perfectionism, and not being taken seriously or encouraged – any of these can leave you doubting that you’re worthy of respect and love.
• Insomnia: There are practical things you can do to allow for the possibility of sleep, like keeping your bedroom cool and not checking the time if you wake up during the night. But when “unfinished business” from your life is disturbing your sleep, addressing it can lead toward relief and more peaceful nights.
• Trauma: Disasters happen to all of us. A small thing can have a big effect on one person, and a big thing can have a small effect on someone else. There’s no comparison and no blame, we’re all different. The only thing that matters is how you are being affected and what could make a difference so that your life stops being restricted by your past.
• Sexual problems: If you’re not having fun, why not? What’s in the way of you relaxing into and exploring your own pleasure? There may be unspoken resentments towards your partner(s), it may be a lack of a partner, maybe bad experiences have left you feeling unsafe in your own body, or you’re tired or stressed – for one reason or another you’re just not feeling it. How to revive or discover for the first time one of the great delights of being embodied?
• Relationships: Intimacy, honest communication, interdependence (not co-dependence/fusion). “Love is possible only if the people involved communicate with each other from the center of their existence” (Eric Fromm).
• Abuse: To recover from any kind of abuse, safety comes first. You might need to leave the environment you’re in. If you don’t feel safe in your own body you can’t feel safe anywhere, and it takes as long as it takes to feel safe. Healing isn’t linear and it can’t happen in isolation. You were hurt in relationship and it’s only in relationship that you may heal. What’s different this time is that you can choose an empathetic and respectful person to face your history of abuse together with you.
• Grief: The death of someone you love, the loss of a relationship, your health, a work identity, can leave you staggered and disoriented, not sure how to keep going. Some losses are old and this might be the first time you’re letting yourself experience them. In the company of someone who doesn’t hurry you to “get over it and move on,” you can speak about your loss, and in time, accept its place in the larger story of your life.
• Chronic unhappiness: Something feels perpetually off, a pervasive sorrow and frustration that you can’t seem to shake. Disappointment, feeling forsaken, being stuck playing a role vs. living and relating authentically, undigested trauma – these are some of the things that can lead to chronic unhappiness.
• Loneliness and Isolation: Time doesn’t heal all wounds. When loneliness and isolation are longstanding issues, it’s often because the need to feel safe overrides all else. Even desiring connection with others, the terror of being hurt might trump our willingness to risk trusting again. How to practise and develop courage, little by little.