Psychotherapy meets
BioIntelligence and Neurobiology
Internal Family Systems Therapy
An empowering and transformative modality of relating to our human experience.
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Internal Family Systems is a healing integrative model that views each individual as a system composed of inner parts, guided by a core Self. It recognizes the natural multiplicity of the human being and values this diversity. Similar to members of a family, inner parts often become entrenched in extreme roles within us, losing access to their valuable qualities. On the other hand, the Self is present in every individual, whole and possessing the inherent ability to promote healing via compassion, curiosity and calmness.
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IFS facilitates healing by identifying, accessing, and resolving protective and wounded inner parts. It fosters a sense of inner and outer connectedness by assisting individuals in first connecting with their core Self and then comprehending and healing their various parts. IFS aims to translate changes and shifts in the inner system to external relationships.
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“Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy is a collaborative therapeutic approach that honors each person’s unique and intuitive healing path.
It is a deeply compassionate, non-pathologizing model that welcomes all parts of a person and offers hope for lasting healing for even our most difficult experiences.”​
~ Richard Schwartz PhD., creator of Internal Family Systems
Somatic Attachment Therapy
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Somatic Experiencing
‘Soma’ is a Greek word for ‘Body’,
Somatic Practice is honoring the wisdom of the living body, known from within.
This ‘knowing’ signifies wholeness.
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Somatic therapy is an experiential approach towards mind-body integration. It uses mind-body techniques to help release stress, tension, and trauma that is stored and accumulated in the body. Somatic therapy expands beyond the realms of talk therapy, integrating your body and its sensations into the therapy work, and offers a holistic approach for transformation.
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Trauma occurs when unexpected events happen too much and too fast for the body and nervous system to regulate themselves afterward. Trauma is defining injury/wounding as a disruption and overwhelm to our body-mind’s capacity to feel safe, secure, cared for, and consistently connected with.
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Profound healing, self-regulating and re-patterning
come from making changes at the body (cellular) level.
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The pain, overwhelm, and coping responses manifested by trauma take us away from feeling at home in our body, at home with other people, or at home within the world. Somatic therapy brings us back.
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I am a devoted practitioner of two Somatic streams:
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Somatic Attachment Therapy:
A somatic therapy approach which acknowledges the narrative of your attachment journey and guides you into the innate wisdom of your body to restore the innate capacity to bond, form healthy and adaptive boundaries, and flourish in all aspects of your relationships.
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What is Somatic Attachment Therapy?​
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Somatic Experiencing (SE™):
Highly transformative gentle therapy developed by Peter Levine which aims to resolve symptoms of stress, shock, and trauma that accumulate in our bodies. SE offers a new and hopeful perspective on trauma. It views the human animal as a unique being, endowed with an instinctual capacity to heal, as well as the intellectual spirit to harness that innate capacity.
Trauma, from an SE lens, is focused on how it shows up in the nervous system and how that dysregulation impacts life. When we are stuck in patterns of fight, flight, or freeze, SE helps us release, recover, and become more resilient. The SE approach releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming patterns that get stuck and impact people’s daily life.
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BrainSpotting
“Where you look affects how you feel”
Brainspotting is defined as an advanced brain-body therapy that focuses on identifying, processing, and releasing trauma, mental health imbalances and residual emotional stress. It is based on the premise that ‘where you look affects how you feel’ and finds that eye positions correlate with unconscious, emotional experiences. When you focus on an eye position related to an upsetting issue, you release the emotional and physical stress within the issue.
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Traumatic experiences are stored in the mammalian and reptilian (stem) brains. Brainspotting is finding spots in your visual field that are allowing access to these brains, that are not generally accessed in traditional talk therapy and most other types of therapy.
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Brainspotting can be directed at Activation or Resourcing. It is enhanced by BioLateral sound to support the process and is effective both for treatment and relaxation.