Psychotherapy

A variety of psychotherapy services offered include managing anxiety, work/life stress and stress related illness, pain management, difficult life transitions, caregiving issues, grief and loss, depression, low self-esteem, compulsive overeating, and relationship patterns.

A holistic approach is utilized including "talk" therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, guided imagery, yoga breathing, relaxation techniques and self-hypnosis.

Forgiveness Workshop

FORGIVING FOR GOOD

HOLDING A GRUDGE IS HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH!

*DO YOU OR SOMEONE YOU CARE ABOUT HOLD ONTO GRIEVANCES (GRUDGES)?

*DO YOU SPEND TIME THINKING ABOUT SOMEONE OR SOME SITUATION WHERE YOU ARE HURT OR ANGRY ABOUT AN OUTCOME THAT YOU DIDN'T WANT?

LEARN HOW FORGIVING FOR GOOD CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

In this 2.5 hour workshop, we will be using the book, FORGIVE FOR GOOD by Dr. Fred Luskin, Director and Co-founder of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project.

Holding on to a grievance can affect your health!
It's been proven to alter your digestion and cause chronic stress and muscle tension, raise your heart rate, your blood pressure, can cause depression, heart disease (even in young adults) and generally makes you unhappy.

Forgiving does NOT mean reconciling with a person who you believe has hurt you NOR does it mean that you let the offender off the hook, condone the actions or hold the person unaccountable!

What it does mean is that by learning to forgive, you free yourself from the past, and allow yourself to be the happy, anxiety-free and joyful person you were meant to be.

Learn the steps and techniques that allow you to forgive while you maintain your personal integrity and discover how to change your outlook on life for good!

Guided Imagery

Guided imagery can help us reach our desired weight, recover from illness, manage pain, reduce anxiety or fears, enhance work performance .It can help you stop smoking or just learn how to get out of your own way and become your own best friend through interacting with a wise inner advisor, accessed through professionally guided imaging work. It can even manage addictions. The way it works is similar to hypnosis except that the client has more control over the process at it uses his/her OWN imagery and not the imagery of the therapist.

GUIDED IMAGERY works with the unconscious mind. That's the mind we can connect with when we learn to quiet the incessant chatter of our conscious mind and allow our conscious mind to access our desired thoughts and feelings.

A word to the wise: DO NOT TRY THIS ON YOUR OWN without first being guided by a trained professional. I use imagery with clients in addition to talk therapy to achieve quicker results.

Guided imagery and Interactive Guided Imagery is offered along with talk therapy to support more rapid results in a shorter time. It's easy to use at home once you learn it in your sessions, and you can take it with you any time you choose to do it. Since it uses client's own imagery, and not the imagery of the therapist, it empowers people who use it to feel more in control of their therapy, their health (emotional and physical) and their lives.

EMDR

EMDR can also be used in addition to talk therapy to help clients process disturbing events and memories that can become blocked in the brain's processing system. EMDR does relatively quickly what many of us are only able to do after great lengths of time-to remember a difficult experience or emotional reaction without feeling the actual fear and anxiety of the original incident.

EMDR is an established, research-based approach to psychotherapy that integrates several therapeutic approaches-body-based, cognitive-behavioral, interpersonal, person-centered and psychodynamic, into a standardized clinical procedure. In a relaxed state, where a strong client-therapist relationship exists, unconscious material can be brought to the surface for more rapid processing and integration. Negative beliefs can be altered and emotional release takes place.

How EMDR Works

When a person is very upset, the brain cannot process information as it normally does. Some situations or traumatic events that provoke intense emotions become "frozen" and stuck in the brain's information processing system. Present day reminders of these events often trigger intense emotional, dysfunctional reactions and can have a profoundly negative impact on how a person views the world and relates to others. The technique is non-intrusive and the client is always in control. The client simply focuses on the problematic experience or belief and feelings, as directed by the EMDR trained therapist, while moving the eyes back and forth.

EMDR appears to produce a direct effect on the way the brain processes upsetting material and allows information to be accessed and processed more rapidly than talk therapy alone. Former rigid and inflexible behaviors used in order to avoid re-experiencing distressing emotions can be changed. New, more flexible reactions and behaviors can be possible.

The process works with the client's own innate capacities, not the therapist's interpretations that lead to adaptive change. With successful EMDR treatment, clients can come to understand that the event was in the past, realize who or what was responsible for the event occurring, and feel more certain about present day safety and the ability to make good choices. Past disturbing events can be remembered with less discomfort, sense of self can become more realistic, non-distorted, and the capacity for good relationships can be strengthened. EMDR can also be used to treat addictions, smoking cessation, eating disorders, phobias, low-self-esteem, somatic disorders and co-dependency.

All psychotherapy sessions are conducted in my office at 1300 W. Belmont Avenue, Chicago, IL 60657

Cost of sessions are:
$120 for 55 minutes - individual sessions
$180 for 55 minutes - couples

Method of payment is direct fee for services paid at time of appointment. A bill can be submitted for insurance reimbursement but it is the client's responsibility for submitting paperwork and collecting reimbursement fees. There is AT LEAST a 24 hour cancellation policy or missed sessions are charged in full. Emergencies are evaluated on a case by case basis.

Comparison of Coaching and Therapy