Here's what I want you to know: It really is as bad as you think. What brought you here is worth your time and energy or it's doubtful you would be here now. My name is Steven Wright, I have Bipolar and Borderline Personality Disorder. I am a LCSW centered out of Georgetown, Texas but I presently serve the Nevada and Texas area remotely. I take a Solutions Focused, Postmodern approach, utilizing my familiarity with ACT, DBT, IFS and AEDP to create a life worth living. If you seek a companion who navigates unconventionally and want someone to help you process what is going on in your life, Book a Session with me!
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
I find that I am terrible at small talk. During the intake it's unfortunately a lot of formalism mixed with playful irreverence. It is important that I simultaneously contract, which means instill the professional nature, informed consent, etc, of the affair while also being able to freshly, attentively, participate in the here and now with you so that during the session we are also able to do more than just an intake session.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
I would never ask my clients to do anything I haven't tried myself, which is sort of selfish in a way but also the source of my strength. I remember one time a therapist said to me "yeah I guess you can try yoga, but I've never tried it" I remember thinking she was a big phony. I'm honest about my struggles to do yoga consistently. I am like a dentist who is honest about how often he flosses his teeth and lets you see his teeth. Vulnerability, I hundred percent believe, is part of the healing process. It takes one to know one and I believe I can make recommendations as someone who has either tried the intervention or been subject to it myself. My marriage, my life, everything, is held together by a thin line of psychotherapeutic tape and I will gladly show you where I put the stiches together. If it was up to me I would work myself out of a job and by the end of your experience I will provide you enough tools that you will feel comfortable engaging in self-lead therapy.
About Steven Wright
Appointments
Virtual
My treatment methods
Acceptance and commitment (ACT)
"We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement" - Pema Chodron
In a world of positive thinking, it can be refreshing to embrace life as it is and face life on life's terms instead of trying to always change or correct it. As Bukowski would say, don't try, or as Pema Chodron would say, Start Where you Are-- stop trying to improve yourself. Acceptance And Commitment Therapy offers a space to really lean into the present moment, to label thoughts as thoughts, and to live according to your values. This can be very helpful for those who have spent the last decade or so trying to fight their thoughts, whether they are racing thoughts or negative emotions, I have found that ACT works great in combination with AEDP. My experience in using ACT is primarily at RTC's for treatment resistant eating disorders, I found it also pairs extremely well with the harm reduction framework for substance use and as a modality for ketamine assisted psychotherapy, as it really allows for the experience to unfold instead of trying to positively reframe it. I have seen ACT be very effective in treating Depression and Anxiety, I've also used ACT for psychosis at a behavioral hospital in extreme instances of acuity and seen ACT work with rigid thinking involved with anorexia and depression.
Solution Focused Brief Treatment
"It it ain't broke don't fix it, if it works do more of it, and if it doesn't work try something different" -Principles of SFBT
Solutions focused brief treatment is incredibly effective, by far the most practical and the most often utilized modality due to the limited time constraints of modern society. It isn't just a set of questions or techniques but it is an approach to doing therapy itself. Instead of focusing on the problem we focus on what is working, how it works and increase the odds of you doing more of the thing that is working. It centers around something called the miracle question, clients often find it fairly user friendly and is often suited for clients who aren't interested in exploring emotions but who would like to quickly cope with their problem in a short amount of time. Solutions Focused Brief Treatment is used from a postmodern perspective, understanding that what works for each person is entirely unique and entirely based on what works for the client. I typically do not use it as often on my clients who would benefit from skills or like myself, have a personality pathology. Client's who want to stay in a more problem solving perspective may benefit from this, as it doesn't require the client to look into the past and primarily focuses on the present or the future.
Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP)
“The roots of resilience...are to be found in the sense of being understood by and existing in the mind and heart of of a loving, attuned, and self-possessed other.” - Diana Fosha
I frequently pull from a book called It's Not Always Depression: Working the Change Triangle to Listen to the Body, Discover Core Emotions, and Connect to Your Authentic Self by Hilary Jacobs Hendel. This book is extremely user friendly and incorporates the change triangle, which is basically a watered-down version of Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy. The core of the work that I do is centered around core affect, or powerful new emotional experiences that are integrated into daily life. Unlike the hexaflex from ACT, I've found the change triangle from AEDP and fairly intuitive off the bat. Typically when I meet with a client we will learn ACT/DBT coping skills, in that process form a strong connection and then the work of AEDP really begins. Once we've used the "coping skills" to create a safe environment within ourselves, we can then explore our emotions together as we learn to coregulate the experience together and I'll attend to the experience by tracking emotions in the moment.
Dialectical Behavior (DBT)
"It is hard to be happy without a life worth living. This is a fundamental tenet of DBT. Of course, all lives are worth living in reality. No life is not worth living." - Marsha Linehan
As someone with BPD, DBT personally saved my life so I have to include it on the list, although I can say I am always tempted to leave it off, because I tend to find it reductionistic at this point and a little basic. I've had many clients master DBT but without further psychodynamic, IFS/AEDP, "transformative" work, that there was something lacking building a life worth living. I believe everyone ought to learn DBT, as it provides the most crystal clear methods of mitigating self-destructive activities and has widely available free resources. Once you learn DBT you will forever be a part of a language of acronyms that you will likely never forget. Truly, DBT really saved my life and I consider it an honor to teach it to others. It took me 2 years to complete myself and I tend to mix in DBT skills, as needed. I have years of teaching DBT skills groups both at PHP/IOP level at an RTC. I would say I have over a decade being familiar with DBT, as I also did it myself as a client.
Group Therapy
“People need people - for initial and continued survival, for socialization, for the pursuit of satisfaction. No one - not the dying, not the outcast, not the mighty - transcends the need for human contact.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy
We need eachother and we wouldn't be in therapy unless we did. Therapy doesn't happen in a vacuum or worse, in an echo chamber but sometimes one on one psychotherapy can become that. Group therapy on the other hand quickly becomes a microcosm of human experience. Healing is something that happens in a relational context and no better to experience this then in group therapy. I have years of experience running interpersonal process groups and dbt skills groups. I believe they can do more than what individual therapy can do alone and that's the reason majority of PHP/IOP, RTC, inpatient therapy rely on group psychotherapy. Learning how to make connections in real time and see the way our emotions, ways of being and other modes of behavior create interpersonal patterns is a priceless experience.
To be frank, I see individual therapy as a road to meaningful group therapy and encourage a client to eventually move to that modality instead of relying on a relationship with me.
