- Do you continue to be troubled by anxiety, depression, shame, or anger despite having been in therapy?
- Do you continue to relive past trauma?
- Are your interpersonal relationships conflictual or troubled?
- Has therapy failed to resolve the root causes of your persistent symptoms?
- Do you need a more intensive form of therapy to resolve your problems?
Concierge Therapy with me. This is a personalized individual therapy service in which I schedule extended sessions with you over several consecutive days. This provides the time necessary to do the intensive therapy work of uncovering and resolving the root causes of your persistent unwanted emotional reactions and behaviors. Concierge Therapy with me might be indicated if you suffer from treatment-resistant anxiety or depression, troublesome shame, post-traumatic stress disorder, and/or chronic pain.
Attachment and Vulnerability. We humans are social creatures. Interpersonal relationships are the fabric of our existence. From birth on, we formed attachments with our caregivers to get our basic needs met. As we developed, we continued to form attachments. Unfortunately, many of us grew up with caregivers who, because of their own issues, could not meet our basic needs for a secure attachment. Repeated efforts to cope with insecure attachments and unmet needs often create dysfunctional relationship patterns which perpetuate a state of continued internal threat (aka “fight or flight” state of arousal). This causes a variety of troubling psychological and physical symptoms secondary to…
- Continued wear and tear on the body and mind.
- Repetitive use of dysfunctional behavior patterns in problematic situations.
- Formation of negative self-evaluations
- Increased vulnerability to stress and further trauma.
Trauma and “Triggers”. Few of us have had “perfect” childhoods.Most of us have experienced setbacks in our life. Many of us have experienced some form of trauma at different points in our life. Traumatic events vary in severity. There are so-called “Little Traumas” and “Big Traumas”.Regardless, the experience of trauma creates Negative Imprints in your Unconscious Mind. These negative imprints predispose you (i.e., sensitize you) to respond repeatedly in dysfunctional ways to situations that “trigger” you. To be “triggered” means the situations bring up disturbing thoughts and feelings associated with past traumatic experiences. When you are “triggered”, you are likely to behave in unwanted ways. What can you do about this?
Changing unwanted feelings and behaviors. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapies and Direct Suggestion In Hypnosis (DSIH) frequently are effective for getting rid of unwanted feelings, thoughts and behavior patterns. But, very often, other unwanted symptoms arise to take their place. This has been called “symptom substitution”. When this happens, more intensive therapy is often necessary.
Intensive Trauma Resolution Therapy (ITRT). ITRT is an intensive form of therapy that addresses the negative fixed ideas about yourself that your traumas imprinted in your Unconscious Mind. These fixed ideas can be likened to a “psychological tumor” because they spread to different parts of your life, create misery, and give rise to additional toxic ideas. I work from the following assumptions:
- The original fixed ideas arose in your struggle to survive trauma.
- These ideas perpetuate a state of continued internal threat and make you feel as if your trauma is still happening. The result is…
- You feel anxious, hypervigilant, ashamed, angry and/or depressed, and…
- You are repeatedly triggered.
- You continue to struggle to survive because…
- You are unable to leave the past in the past and live in the present. Therefore…
- You haven’t been able to get better.
- To get well, these negative fixed ideas need to be removed, and new healthy ideas need to be imprinted into your Unconscious in their place. Then…
- You no longer will be repeatedly triggered.
In ITRT, to diminish repeated triggering, we work together to uncover your unconscious ideas about what happened to you in the past that sensitized you to react in unwanted self-defeating ways. These are memories which we refer to as your Initial Sensitizing Experiences or ISE’s. I use Intensive Hypnotherapy integrated with other therapeutic techniques to retrieve these memories.
Please note. “Memory retrieval” is NOT like rewinding a tape or video player. The memories retrieved represent your current ideas about what happened to you in the past. They are NOT an exact or factual facsimile.
Once we identify your ISE’s, (i.e., your understandings of the “root causes” of your symptoms), we continue to work together using Hypnotherapy and other appropriate clinical modalities (e.g., EMDR Therapy) to review, reprocess and reframe these ideas. The objective is to clear your Unconscious Mind of bad ideas and replace them with good ideas. This paves the way for changing your dysfunctional behaviors and feelings.
Please read my explanation of Concierge Hypnotherapy here.
Please read my explanation of Concierge EMDR Therapy here.
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In summary, I integrate Hypnotherapy, Hypnotic Regression Therapy, EMDR Therapy, Energy Psychology, CBT, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and other therapy modalities as needed. I have been doing this work as a clinical psychologist since 1986.
For more information, please read my pages on Concierge Hypnotherapy, Concierge EMDR Therapy, and About Me.
Concierge Therapy is NOT covered by insurance. It is a private pay arrangement that is paid for at the time of service. In our initial consultation, we can determine whether this approach will be appropriate and beneficial for you.
SCHEDULE YOUR FREE 15-MINUTE CONSULT HERE