9 years of experience
“Taking refuge” is a phrase in Buddhism that serves as an invitation to our world-weary self to find relief. From the confusion of life’s dramas and the inevitable pull to get swept up in them. Loving relationships can offer that kind of relief, those in which one feels accepted and seen. And meditation, too: the mind slowing down and opening to its inherent spaciousness. Taking refuge requires building trustworthiness, through a softening and strengthening that happens over time in relationship. That is one of the reasons psychotherapy is effective: The trustworthiness that therapist and client build together allows for a depth of self to be known and expressed. Such encounters with self in turn build trustworthiness within oneself, for as our capacities enlarge, we enlarge. In coming to find safety and solace within, one learns to live less fearfully, participate in relationships with greater authority and ease. As a graduate of Naropa University and longtime Contemplative Psychotherapist, I see psychological healing through a Buddhist Psychology lens: as we open our hearts to ourselves through compassion and insight, we are able to shift and find more flexibility in our conditioned patterns of relating to ourselves and others. To facilitate that opening, I draw from a variety of psychotherapeutic practices and philosophies—Jungian Psychology, Gestalt Psychology, Object Relations Psychology, Rogerian Psychology, Internal Family Relations, and many mindfulness-based interventions such as Hakomi and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I seek to create a warm and compassionate space in which you can explore, understand, and transform your life.
In our first session, we'll talk about why you are seeking therapy and what you'd like to get out of it. I want to understand a fuller context of your life and relationships, so I'll also take a history in a loosely structured conversation. My hope is that through our conversation, we'll get to know each other better.
The heart of my practice is Buddhist Psychology, the understanding that in our natural state of beingness, we are spacious, compassionate, and clear-seeing. As we come into the world and adapt to our environment and its challenges, we form social selves that often work to separate us from our open, natural state. Therefore, understanding and working with our social adaptations not only helps us orient from our natural, unobstructed state but helps transmutes the fear, anger, and sense of woundedness that they carry.
I'm proficient in seeking out the root of the issue, sharing my formulation, and then collaborating so that real understanding has a chance to grow.