Sensorimotor psychotherapy® draws from somatic therapies, neuroscience, attachment theory, and cognitive approaches, as well as from the Hakomi Method. Recognizing the link between the body and psychological issues, Dr. Pat Ogden began to form the foundations of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy® by joining somatic therapy and psychotherapy into a comprehensive method for healing this disconnection between body and mind. In 1981, after co-founding the Hakomi Institute, pioneered by Ron Kurtz, Dr. Ogden founded her own school, a branch of the Hakomi Institute, which is known today as the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute (SPI).

Mindfulness means intentionally paying attention to what is present in the moment—thoughts, emotions, sensations—with acceptance and without judging. Often, just noticing what is real (rather than expected or assumed) can open up new ways of understanding, of acting, of speaking, that can propel people on a journey of increased joy and satisfaction, of less stress and reactivity. Mindfulness practice can involve both formal and informal meditation practices as well as movement and other non-meditative exercises. Increasing one's awareness and lowering one's resistance to the trials of life are two very important parts of the work I do with clients.

I have additional training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli, Mindful Yoga Works with Dr. Jim Carson and Kimberly Carson, and Mindfulness-Based Smoking Cessation with Dr. James Davis.

Yoga therapy is a holistic discipline based on the premise that the mind, body, and spirit are connected. An emerging field in America, yoga therapy hovers somewhere between a doctor’s visit and a stretching class. Yoga therapists identify physical and emotional symptoms, then recommend yoga postures to address these symptoms and their underlying causes. Clients typically leave with instructions on a custom series of poses to practice at home. These poses change each week according to the student’s experience.

I have experience teaching yoga to people with Multiple Sclerosis, many kinds of cancer, and eating disorders. Each of these groups of people have different needs depending on their disease, their individual physical and mental needs, as well as their prognosis for healing. I also have experience teaching yoga to people with physical injuries, people with generally healthy bodies, and people with a variety of mental health concerns. If you are interested in receiving yoga therapy, whether in conjunction with talk therapy or alone, please let me know. We will work together to find a format and structure for healing that fits your individual needs.

Person-centered therapy, now considered a founding work in the humanistic school of psychotherapies, began formally with Carl Rogers. Rogers identified three ‘core conditions’ which are needed to produce personality changes in clients: Therapist congruence: the therapist him- or herself is deeply involved — they are not "acting" — and they can draw on their own experiences (self-disclosure) to facilitate the relationship; Unconditional positive regard: the therapist accepts the client unconditionally, without judgment, disapproval, or approval, thus facilitating increased self-regard in the client as the client begins to become aware of experiences in which their view of self-worth was distorted by others; and Empathic understanding: the therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the client's internal frame of reference, that is, the therapist truly understands the client’s worldview. Accurate empathy on the part of the therapist helps the client believe the therapist's unconditional love for them. Although this technique has been criticized by behaviorists for lacking structure, it has proven to be an effective and popular treatment. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person-centered_therapy.)

I engage in person-centered therapy whenever I work with clients: whether solving a specific problem, doing yoga therapy, teaching DBT coping skills or mindfulness practices, or making meaning in the face of grief and loss. A person-centered focus is foundational to the work I do.

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a specific type of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy developed in the late 1980s by psychologist Marsha M. Linehan to help better treat borderline personality disorder. Since its development, it has also been used for the treatment of other kinds of mental health disorders.

DBT emphasizes the psychosocial aspects of treatment. The theory behind the approach is that some people are prone to react in a more intense and out-of-the-ordinary manner toward certain emotional situations, primarily those found in romantic, family, and friend relationships. DBT theory suggests that some people’s arousal levels in such situations can increase far more quickly than the average person’s, attain a higher level of emotional stimulation, and take a significant amount of time to return to baseline arousal levels. DBT treatment helps clients learn and master skills in four main areas: mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance. 

I teach clients DBT skills and give clients the opportunity to practice these skills in a safe, supportive environment so that they can achieve some mastery and effectively make the skills their go-to ways of responding in difficult situations. 

The term biofield refers to our body’s electrical system in its entirety--both the electric current that runs through our bodies, and the magnetic field that surrounds it. It is well known and scientifically recognized that all electronic fields have field around them. Humans have this same composition. Even the Earth has its own plasmic biofield which protects us all from radiation and energetic atmospheric fluctuations. (HeartMath does great research on this!) This bubble or plasmic “field” around our bodies, holds our memories or imprints of injury, stuck masses of energy (or biophotons), or sometimes chaotic disorganized clouds.

​Biofield Tuning is a sound therapy method that works directly with this system, seeing it as inextricably connected with our conscious and subconscious mind, including our memories. Using tuning forks and my intuition, I work in a person's biofield to break up stuck chunks of energy and to corral and focus chaotic/disorganized energy biophotons and drop them back into the person's body. Thus, the person's body has access to more of the energy from their own biofield. People report feeling energized, relaxed, able to move/do in areas of their lives where they had been stuck or unmotivated before. Sometimes it eases physical pain.

How does it work?

Tuning forks work therapeutically according to the physics principles of resonance and entrainment. Initially they resonate with whatever distortion or dysfunction is present in the body and its field, and then, through the production of a stronger, more coherent frequency provided by the tuning forks, they entrain the body into a more coherent expression.

The overtones, undertones, and vibrations produced by the tuning forks interface, like sonar, with these acoustic emanations of the body. The tuning forks are able to locate areas of “noise” in the signal. These pockets of noise are held like nodes or eddies in the standing waves contained within the biofield and may relate to experience of physical, mental, or emotional stress from any point in our lifetimes.

 When the noise is located in the field, the precise application of sound from the tuning forks can cause the body to self-regulate out of the noise and into a more harmonious expression—your best Self.

There’s more information on what Biofield Tuning is and how it works here and here.

For testimonials from pleased clients, please click here.