Articles

Exposure Therapy to unravel fears and phobias

Exposure therapy is a technique in behavior therapy that I commonly use to treat anxiety disorders. It involves the exposure of the client to the feared (but in and of itself non-dangerous) object, thought, or context, in order to help them overcome their anxiety. A related treatment I also utilize is Exposure and Response Prevention, a method widely used for the treatment of Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
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The Power of Acceptance

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a set of skills that illuminates the way for us to drop our futile and culturally-bound attempts to wage war against our own inner lives. Rather than trying to reduce or eliminate difficult states such as shame, grief or fear, I enjoy teaching clients psychological acceptance techniques that encourage them to notice such difficult feelings more fully, while reducing their conditioned link to problematic action, such as avoidance behavior. Read more

Here’s a helpful poem that points the way toward the skill of acceptance as an alternative to behavioral avoidance

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a set up skills that illuminates the way for us to drop our futile and culturally-bound attempts to wage war against our own inner lives. Rather than trying to reduce or eliminate difficult states such as shame, grief or fear, I enjoying teaching clients psychological acceptance techniques that encourage them to notice such difficult feelings more fully, while reducing their conditioned link to problematic action, such as avoidance behavior. Read more

Overcoming Insomnia

Insomnia and sleep difficulties are common problems that I often hear about and help clients with in my practice. Lasting sleep problems can lead to real suffering and interference with ones life.

Here are two helpful articles on how to manage sleep problems through good sleep “hygenie,” Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, physical exercise, and various forms of relaxing the nervous system: Read more

The wisdom of integrating psychotherapy with meditation practice

Jack Kornfield is an American author and teacher in the Vipassana movement in American Buddhism and Co-founder of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin. Here’s a helpful article by him titled “Even the Best Meditators Have Old Wounds to Heal“.

He speaks of the benefits and limitations of meditation practice, and how psychotherapy can be useful for meditatiors to become more aware of our feelings and our bodies and to directly heal old wounds and unintegrated aspects of ourselves. Read more

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

EMDR is a therapeutic tool that some therapists use with their clients. It was developed by psychologist Dr. Francine Shapiro in 1989. EMDR stands for “eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.” These words refer to the way that EMDR was first used – the client was guided by the therapist to move his or her eyes from left to right over and over again while thinking about something bothersome or upsetting. This movement of the eyes was found to help people quickly “re-wire” disturbing memories and emotions, rendering then completely undisturbing. Read more

Developing Self Compassion

Here’s an interesting article from the New York Times on a new wave of research on the importance of Self Compassion, which as the article states “is not to be confused with self indulgence or lower standards.” Becoming a good friend to yourself is a part of more successfully handling the inevitable ups and downs of life. Read more

Experiential Avoidance

Anti-Avoidance techniques are often an important part of becoming freer in life and are an integral part of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a cutting-edge Cognitive-Behavioral Approach to healing. Here’s an interesting description of “Experiential Avoidance” and how it is implicated in mental health challenges

Experiential avoidance (EA) has been broadly defined as attempts to avoid thoughts, feelings, memories, physical sensations, and other internal experiences—even when doing so creates harm in the long-run. Read more