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Joan Bechtel, LMFT - California Therapist at Grow Therapy

Joan Bechtel

Joan Bechtel

(she/her)

LMFT
12 years of experience
In-person
2920 Camino Dia...

My clients return over the years as life brings new challenges. They trust the work we have done because they have learned to trust who they are. Most of them wonder at first why I focus on the call of the heart. Why I invite them to play. And to make friends with parts of themselves they have been told to get rid of. And it shocks them when they discover they can learn to answer the call of the heart. Because i am older and have a broad spectrum of lived experience as well as an integrative approach, what I have to offer springs more directly from the deep unheard yearning of each unique client, than from one size fits all techniques. The deeper we go the more fun we have.

What can clients expect to take away from sessions with you?

In the first session they should expect sanctuary. That all feelings are welcome. They should expect to be placed at ease, to feel safe and valued. They should know that the initial anxiety of starting therapy will be addressed in a nonthreatening, friendly, relaxing, fun way, such as a simple fun expressive exercise that does not demand explanation or justification or answers on some bureaucratic form. Instead, a simple initial exercise will take us both directly into the feelings and concerns they bring without the stress and threat of verbalizing what is naturally so hard to verbalize. And these feelings will be welcomed and validated and granted sanctuary.

Explain to clients what areas you feel are your biggest strengths.

Warmth, empathy, creativity, nonjudgmental validation of all experience and feelings. Authenticity, humor, curiosity, good boundaries. I offer a good mirror of feelings expressed as well as feelings and parts that live in shadow, orphaned, exiled, invalidated. I am very good at expanding my reflection to include positive regard and valuing for parts of themselves that they have been programmed to believe are bad, evil, worthless, or just troublesome. I am pretty effective at expanding clients' awareness of how and why they have had to demonize and abandon parts of themselves that hold vital life energy. my clients like and enjoy me because I like and enjoy them tremendously. I always tell them how they teach me, enlighten me, inspire and delight me. I am also good at taking full accountability if I cause or contribute to a rupture, or a hurt feeling. I am good at repair. My clients trust me and feel safely held by me. They feel I am never going to push them too hard. And I will never miss an opportunity to encourage them to take the risk of going toward their full humanity. I am good at helping them build self trust and self attunement, and a working meter of what feels right and safe to them and what does not.

About Joan Bechtel

Identifies as

Specializes in

Serves ages

Licensed in

Accepts

Address

2920 Camino Diablo, Walnut Creek, CA, USA

Appointments

Free consults, in Person

My treatment methods

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

My integrative approach combines Internal Family Systems with Somatic and Expressive Arts to create a multidimensional framework for holistic healing and growth. These methods approach the biosocial psychological origins of trauma, and the problematic patterns, habits, beliefs and coping mechanisms that arise from trauma. Because it is not limited to the intellect, it can be more effective in engaging the parts of the subconscious psyche that are less accessible to the rational mind but extremely powerful since the unconscious drives most of our behavior. This is a fun and profound way to shift our trauma-driven and shame-based behavior away from self abandonment and toward self attunement to connect body to mind, and shift reactivity to responsiveness.

Child Parent Psychotherapy

Emotional attachment is the core survival need. More powerful and necessary than hunger, thirst or shelter. It affects all our reactivity. Making friends with our attachment need, attachment style and the early trauma-based self-abandoning coping mechanisms like self-hate, shaming, and people-pleasing can open us gently to self trust. Through play therapy for adults, expressive arts exploration, and IFS work, we learn to shift from an adversarial relationship to an attuned relationship with these demonized parts of ourselves. Attachment-based play develops the compassion, curiosity and creativity that grows our responsiveness to our lives, our needs and our choices. We can reduce the frequency and intensity of the often paralyzing sense of helplessness from early trauma. By dropping into the preverbal world of symbolism we can safely befriend those lost parts of ourselves. We can integrate the lost treasures we had to throw overboard to survive a challenging childhood. Befriending lets us open to creating our own lives. When I work with a child or youth I include the parent in treatment. the child is part of a unit. A system. Not separate from it. The parent is the heartbeat of the household. The parent needs support in dealing with the many issues of our own that arise asa we raise children through each developmental stage. The parent's healing and growth directly and powerfully serves the child's healing.