Before becoming a therapist, I worked in the healing arts and in program design for emotionally disturbed adolescents. In all these positions, I became aware of the need to care for the emotional wounds and distress that people carry, affecting their sense of self and their relationships and leaving them wondering what is wrong with them. I returned to graduate school after raising 4 children as a single mom to become a therapist. I love being able to witness clients finding self-understanding and self-acceptance-- discovering, valuing, and feeling comfortable in their authentic self. I find that this usually involves connecting our personal experience and meaning making with both conscious and unconscious familial, social, and cultural influences that have shaped our beliefs about ourselves. My experience tells me that lasting change emerges from therapy that is collaborative, psychodynamic, and experiential, allowing you to experience yourself, your life, and your inner world differently.
What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?
Listening to you without judgment or assumptions, I want to get to know who you are, what you think, feel, and perceive. As I attune to your thoughts and feelings, I make sure that I understand you and that you feel understood. Connecting with you and your concerns without judgment or assumptions opens the way for me to get to know you and your goals, and how we can best work together to create the changes you want in your feelings about and experience of yourself and your life. We talk about whatever you need to know about me and about therapy to feel comfortable in our work together.
Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.
Relaxed, authentic, warm, and fully present, my focus in therapy is on creating a space in which you feel safe and understood so that a way forward in which you feel good about yourself can be found. I've been described as being a mid-wife for my clients, supporting in our work together the growth and birth of your new sense of self. Healing, like birthing, is a natural process and I am able to attune to what is needed to help you connect with your innate ability to heal unresolved trauma and emotional wounds and your inner reservoir of wisdom and guidance.
Describe the client(s) you are best positioned to serve.
I work with adult individuals who are struggling with past or present trauma, depression, or anxiety, as well as people facing life transitions or seeking to understand themselves at a deeper level. Sometimes the issues that surface in therapy involve the effects of sociocultural biases, questions of meaning or identity, unwanted patterns in relationships, or unresolvable grief.
About Rebecca Pottenger
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5150 N 6th St, Fresno, CA 93710, 115Appointments
Virtual & in-personMy treatment methods
Jungian
I combine a Jungian approach to help you connect with your inner life and innate capacity for healing, with experiential processes so that transformation is grounded in your body and lived experience. I have found that this combination fosters lasting transformation in your sense of self and supports you in discovering what it means to you to live an authentic, meaningful, and fulfilling life.
Trauma Informed Care
Trauma can be a single big event; it can also the accumulation of hurts, neglect, or abuse that has caused an inability to trust yourself/others/life. It can also be caused by societal forces (racism, sexism, heterosexism etc.) that make the world a place of cruelty, deprivation, or rejection. oneself as safe and having control is crucial to healing from trauma. In treating trauma it is critical to understand the enduring breadth and depth of its impact, whether recent or long past. Healing trauma begins with finding ways to feel safe and a sense of control. Trauma-informed therapy is collaborative. We work at your pace and follow your process. It pairs well with Jungian psychotherapy in helping you to understand and address the effect of trauma on your brain and body, your sense of self, and how you engage with the world. Bringing an experiential and somatic component is also important, as insight is not enough to address trauma. It heals "from the bottom up"--in other words from what you experience with and in your body.
Eclectic
In my years of practice I've acquired a "toolbox" of approaches that allows me to create with you an approach tailored to your needs and who you are. In addition to psychodynamic/Jungian approaches that help you understand and address--experientially and somatically--influences on your thinking, emotions, and behavior that may not be conscious, I draw from as needed spiritual, energetic, relational, strength-based, narrative, creative-expressive, and gestalt approaches. My intention is to support your process of healing and personal growth in such a way as to long-lasting, embodied transformation and a deepened sense of authenticity and wholeness.
Group Therapy
I offer women's 3-day retreats designed to help women discover and nurture their relationship with their deep self in ways that are healing and empowering. Creative, meditative, and reflective activities and connection with nature supports processes of self-discovery, connection with our embodied wisdom, and release of what no longer serves us.