THE WORK
Therapy
I combine empirically-proven cognitive therapy with Buddhist-informed contemplative psychotherapy.
Cognitive therapy helps us become aware of and “re-record” the unhelpful “tapes” that play over and over in our heads. These unhelpful tapes tend to be full of statements like:
He/she probably doesn’t like me.
This isn’t going to work out for me.
I should have a “passion.”
There’s something wrong with me.
I love him/her but I don’t know if I’m “in-love” with him/her anymore.
I’m not successful enough.
Often we would never think of talking to anyone else the way we talk (or think) to ourselves and the way we think matters. Cognitive therapy basically says, “We can’t change our feelings, but we CAN change our thinking patterns.” And how we think about things really affects how we feel about them! It takes practice and commitment to change how we think about ourselves and our life. I help teach you these tools.
Contemplative psychotherapy uses concepts like compassion and mindfulness to help us learn better how to be “in the moment.” This way we can return to our direct experience without adding a whole lot of judgment on top of it. Life has painful parts–no one can prevent that. But when we can experience them and work through them with less resistance we can have more peace.