Therapy Modalities
We offer a range of services. Our goal is always to meet people where they feel ready to go, and ideally to address the core of whatever brings them into therapy. The modalities we have been interested in are typically body-centered and focused on fundamentally changing the architecture of how we feel. We are committed to staying up to date with regards to research and best practices. These are a few of the types of psychotherapy we offer, and all of these are integrated with each other to provide a foundation for healing and change.
Neurofeedback
Neurofeedback is a FDA-approved intervention for “relaxation” that has been in use for over 40 years, and that has been successfully applied to a wide range of issues, including anxiety, depression, autism, trauma, attachment issues, addiction, and ADHD, among other issues. The process involves using sensors and a computer to read, digest, and reflect real time brain activity back to the person who is receiving it in a way that they adopt changes to the way their nervous system networks and processes. In short, the process helps us train and change how we function. In my practice I have found that it is immensely useful for reducing experiences of anxiety, stress, depression, sleep, migraine, and tension, and building resiliency and a profound sense of calm. Sometimes this looks like training just a few sessions to make a small shift, and some clients have been training with me upward of 20 sessions. With the type of neurofeedback I practice (known as Infraslow Fluctuation Neurofeedback, or ISF: an approach developed by Mark Smith, https://neurofeedbackservicesny.com/) I find that most people train between 8 and 15 sessions, and that most participants feels better after even one session.
Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR)
Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) is a guided mindfulness-based psychotherapy that focuses on healing the roots of traumatic experiences and attachment shock by intentionally attending to the very first ways the nervous system orients and activates when there is lack of physical and/or emotional safety.
Noticing, staying with, and ultimately releasing the muscle tensions that arise from these deep parts of the brain allows the body to clear the shock, bracing, and tension associated with the trauma. This paves the way for successfully processing any related emotions.
Staying with these sensations in the face and neck also provides an anchor point, so that the person processing their memories is less likely to be flooded by high intensity emotions, or to become absent (dissociated) when processing. Many people find this is a gentler, yet deeper, approach than other trauma-focused therapies.
Deep Brain Reorienting is a “bottom-up” approach, meaning the processing happens through staying present with physical sensation and internal awareness, rather than through cognitions and words. It is also guided by current and developing research in neuroscience. To learn more, visit https://deepbrainreorienting.com/.
EMDR
According to the EMDR International Association (https://www.emdria.org/), “Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an extensively researched, effective psychotherapy method proven to help people recover from trauma and other distressing life experiences, including PTSD, anxiety, depression, and panic disorders.” Clients often report significant, rapid, and permanent shifts from this process.
Equine Assisted Psycotherapy
Equine assisted psychotherapy (EAP), involves partnering with horses in creative ways to support the therapeutic process. Following what is said about Gestalt therapy earlier, EAP entails a creative link between the person and the horse that facilitates learning, relationship, boundaries, embodiment, and integrative change. Additionally, there is a growing body of research suggesting the profound physiological benefits of spending safe, structured time with the horses. We have three, sometimes more, horses to work with here, and each has a very different history and personality.
Mounted equine processing is a specific tool within the broad range of tasks we can focus on in equine-assisted psychotherapy. It works by being seated in a saddle on the horse, focusing on a specific feeling or issue, holding this awareness while the horse is walking and allowing your body to process it in a natural and safe way. If any part of this is uncomfortable, much care is taken to slow things down and stay with whatever feels manageable. The result is often a feeling of release of emotion and tension, as well as relief (along with some sleepiness and hunger as our nervous system resets). This process draws on elements of other therapies, but the combination is uniquely its own experience.
Gestalt
Gestalt psychotherapy can probably be best described as “right hemisphere therapy”, in that it involves tapping into our intuitive, creative, and innate processing that verbal/cognitive approaches often struggle to access. Exploring our relational, somatic, emotional, and existential experience of ourselves and each other in a playful, organic process can be a profound way to navigate and renegotiate issues we’ve been stuck on.