Allison Ray Benavides
An experienced medical social worker, my niche is helping those recovering from chronic physical and emotional pain, mystery symptoms, illness and disease processes (including infertility, maternal loss, peri/menopause, terminal illness, limb loss, and caregiver role stress). My clients often have chronic pain, fatigue, migraines, fibromyalgia, back/neck/hip and other joint pains, pelvic floor pain, EDS, POTS, dysautonomia, CRPS, IBS, PMDD, and other chronic conditions. I especially love supporting those coping with feelings of low self worth, depression, anxiety, panic, trauma, and grief.
I am also certified in Pain Reprocessing Therapy and EAET -- the most current research backed methods for recovering from chronic pain that I especially love to share.
I am importantly trained in Pain Reprocessing Therapy and EAET -- the most current research backed methods for recovering from chronic pain that I especially love to share. Because they work! I am also trained in EMDR, CBT, Mindfulness, and energy psychologies like EFT (aka “tapping”). I study Internal Family Systems Therapy, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and dream tending. My authentic approach is also intimately informed by the wisdom traditions that have healed my own life. The mother of a child with a life threatening seizure disorder, I am not unfamiliar with suffering. I often turn to my spiritual faith, Jungian Psychology, nature, and the Wise Woman Herbalism Tradition. I am a life-long meditation, yoga, and reiki practitioner, and always a student of Buddhist Psychology. I find healing in stillness, puppies, humor, art, poetry, and the sacred. I love stories.
First session
My job is to listen to your story. I build connection through my natural curiosity about the different inner and outer lives we all live, the lives we wish we lived instead, and the tension found in between. Longing, loss, rejection, and other vulnerabilities can be acutely painful, poking our most tender parts. Our darkest fears distort the truth, reinforcing intimate beliefs of not being enough, capable, or lovable. Since fear lives in our nervous system, as much as in our thoughts, pain can become physical and chronic overtime. It can become important to learn perspectives and methods that target and soothe symptoms in the body, mind, and heart. To this end, I am an engaged therapist. So while I listen and explore, I also educate and practice strategies with you. We'll assess your specific situation and see what happens when we apply different models and ways of understanding, sitting with, and easing your suffering. Together we’ll collaborate to tend your inner experience - creating safer, more compassionate, and empowered ways of being your self.
Strengths
My approach to psychotherapy is uniquely informed by my personal healing and spiritual path. As a lay Buddhist practitioner in my 20's, I became a hospice volunteer while working as a computer programmer. My beautiful experiences there inspired me to leave my career and go back to school to become a social worker so I could work in death and dying full time. As a medical/hospice social worker I learned all the important things I didn't learn in school about how much the body has to do with mental health. After I left hospice, I expanded on my medical experiences by developing my niche in chronic pain management/recovery. So my therapeutic approach is a blend of ancient wisdom with current research, adding common sense and heart. I share and practice with my clients the age old perspectives and ways that humans have always known to nurture and heal the parts that hurt -- physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I love my work specifically because I love watching it work. I love to laugh with my clients, reconnect them to their joy, and be their reminder that recovery is possible.
Ideal clients
My clients often find me because of my background as a medical social worker & because they suffer with chronic physical symptoms - i.e. pain, fatigue, brain fog, itching, nausea, weakness, syncope, vertigo, tinnitus, etc. These symptoms often cluster into syndromes like EDS, CFS, IBS, PMDD, POTS, dysautonomia & others. They have migraines, jaw/back/hip/pelvic pains, long Covid, etc. They often have symptoms without a clear diagnosis or solution. Sometimes the opposite is true & a diagnosis is clearly understood that is sometimes terminal. Emotionally my clients suffer with grief, panic, depression & anxiety. There can be shame, anger & guilt. I hear feelings of betrayal & injustice that can lead to feeling guarded & withdrawn. There is isolation, withdraw & loneliness. Helplessness & hopelessness. It is not uncommon to have a trauma history. Mentally, they have minds that won't turn off. There can be a harsh inner critical voice that demands perfectionism & is overly conscientious. It can tell them they aren't good enough, capable enough, or worthy of being seen or loved. Their relationships to others; to their educational, career, & financial goals; to themselves . . . have all been compromised, challenged, & changed. My clients just want their life back. They are desperate to feel like themselves again. They're restless, frustrated, grieving, & panicked -- they don't want to suffer anymore, & I don't blame them. They hurt so badly when they finally find me that they are open & willing. This is where the recovery process starts. It's beautiful to watch suffering dial back. It doesn't happen over night. But slowly & surely, it is possible to turn back the severity, frequency, & length of the your flare ups. We can more than manage your chronic symptoms, we can recover your life.
Treatment methods
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
CBT is a key strategy for relearning pain, used to work with the thoughts that contribute in a very real way to your physical symptoms.
Mindfulness-Based Therapy
Mindfulness is an important therapeutic seed that feeds many birds. Practicing meditative techniques, like somatic scanning, is a primary strategy used for hundreds of years, as well as in Pain Reprocessing Therapy, to retrain chronic symptoms like pain, fatigue, nausea, panic, etc.
EMDR
EMDR is an excellent strategy utilizing bilateral stimulation to reduce the intensity and frequency of those intrusive fear responses that keeps the cycle of chronic pain and other symptoms going.
Psychoeducation
Rewiring pain and other neuroplastic symptoms is based on education and practice, making my approach more collaborative than other models.
Location
Virtual sessions
Identifies as
Top specialties
Other specialties
Serves
Doesn't specialize in
Licensed in
- CaliforniaLicense 76522
- TexasLicense 104786