About My Approach
"We never outgrow our need for connection. In our moment of need, turning to someone to share the load of our emotional experience, we all need this. This makes us human."
- Sue Johnson, founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy
Finding Connection
Modern research is discovering that we are not designed to handle difficult experiences and feelings by ourselves. Studies show that we are "socially brained" and neurologically built to unlock resilience in each other through safe and connected attachment relationships. Looking at relationships from this perspective, attachment-based therapy services can help maximize the healing aspects of your current relationships. I provide attachment-based individual, family, couples, and group counseling as well as support parents with their roles in their child's daily stress rocovery and healing from past trauma.
Art and Play Therapies are a welcoming, safe, non-threatening approaches to re-experience past and current issues, without having to engage the alarm state of the brain that can often shut down a verbal conversation about difficult experiences. Creative, non-verbal approaches allow participants to safely "pick up" portions of trauma and stress, look at the situation from new perspectives, and try on new meaning to storylines, all without neccessarily having to say a word.
A typical session would invite a child, adolescent, adult within an individual, family, or group session to participate in an art task or play theme. Tasks presented are prepared to address topics that are important to each participant such as loss, changes in the family, sitting with difficult feelings, trauma and abuse, relationship issues, communication, and much more. Through the creative process, participants are invited to look at their creative response while connecting it to a specific life experience. By staying "in the metaphor" of the artwork or play process, both participatents and therapist discover new meaning of stressors and can begin a new storyline that begins a path towards healing.
The benefits of Art and Play Therapy
You are able to address issues non-verbally.
Not everyone is ready to talk about their feelings. Many people don't have the words to describe their experience or maybe has never connected feeling words to real emotions inside. Creative Therapies allow individuals of all ages to safely examine past wounds, create sensory-based tools for emotional safety, and move towards healing-- all without a word needed. Verbal therapy skills usually companion the therapy process, but it is important to note that a participant's verbal skills are not neccessary to work towards healing.
When you create something or reenact something through play about your past, you are able to literally show your family and therapist your point of view. It can be hard to rely on our words alone to flesh out to one another what is on our minds. Being able to have a physical representation of your experience can be incredibly helpful when two people are trying to understand each other better. Also, artwork and play can sometimes express more than words are able to.
Art and play provide individuals a wonderful tool in self awareness. It can be very hard to really have perspective about oneself or truly connect with one's own voice. Visual representation and re-ennacting play of your life can open a world of self observation and a new connection to new unconscious material-- truth below the surface that is often harder to access.
Sometimes you need to think outside the box when solving a problem. Many times we get stuck in habits that are not helping us move on and heal. By processing issues in a new way, you are able to see situations with new perspective, try new solutions and create new meaning of the past.
"If I could say it with words, there would be no reason to paint." - Edward Hopper
What are Art and Play Therapies?
