Approach

I view my patients as partners in the process of identifying and implementing optimal solutions in life. These are essential components of my work in therapy.

- Providing a safe environment in which patients can feel comfortable to explore their issues and concerns without being judged.

- Validating patients' experiences and unmet needs and providing them with corrective emotional experiences.

- Assisting patients in developing awareness, insight, and self-reflection.

- Educating them about the working of the brain and mind and how that knowledge can help them to better manage different life situations.

- Teaching contructive emotion regulation skills.

A typical first session involves reviewing patients' history and developing an understanding of their needs, goals, and intentions. Subsequent sessions may include verbal processing, relaxation and stress management, breath work, developing awareness, problem solving, improving coping and communication skills, learning how to establish and maintain healthy boundaries, learning to implement mindfulness skills, and other techniques.

Approach

Therapy

Mind & Body

Connection

Mind and body connection is very important in my work as a therapist. This is based on my:

- Training in Interpersonal Neurobiology, an approach that combines latest research in neuroscience, attachment theory, and mindfulness.

- Practicing mindfulness meditation more than ten years.

- Practicing yoga daily for more than twenty years.

Emotion Regulation

Emotion Regulation is a set of skills - mental and behavioral - which we use to influence and manage our emotions as well as emotions of others. Those skills are particularly important when we experience difficult and/or extreme emotions. Children typically learn how to regulate emotions in their immediate environment. Later on, those responses become habits and most people tend to use them automatically.

Some people are more effective in regulating their emotions while others become easily overwhelmed and flooded by them. An example of an effective emotion regulation is calming down after experiencing a stressful event. Becoming very anxious or even paralyzed by fear is an example of emotional dysregulation. In such situations, people frequently feel flooded by their emotions to the point of being unable to think. On the other hand, some people tend to respond to strong emotions by blocking them and being completely detached from them. That is an example of over-regulation. Those people may feel more in control but without being in touch with their emotions life may feel dull and empty Dysregulation and over-regulation are not effective ways of managing one's emotions.

In my work, I put emphasis on teaching effective emotion regulation skills. My patients learn how to experience their emotions without feeling overwhelmed and/or blocking them. Experiencing the entire range of emotions allows them to live their lives fully.