THEORY OF CHANGE
Effective therapy is grounded in a comprehensive model of how change occurs.
If you’re here, you’re seeking some sort of change. People typically don’t need to be told what would improve their lives, they naturally seek it once the obstacles in their path are identified, made workable, and reduced. Often, we’ve stopped learning about what’s going on and instead are rehearsing a version of life we’d rather change. We cannot change what we don’t fully see, so we begin with accurate and curious observation of your experience.
This part matters and people tend to skip it, or there is an obstacle preventing this from occurring on one’s own. Without this foundational piece, we can feel “stuck” or like we’re going in circles – what I call repetition without renewal. So our shared goal is first to learn about your experience for the purpose of new, specific practice.
The practice is to consistently engage in the challenging experience in small, manageable ways - even smaller than you might expect - while resisting the urge to control, avoid, or defend. By allowing reality to unfold as it is, not as you fear it to be, new learning emerges and quality of life improves.
The aim to “feel better” assumes control over one’s emotional world, which no one has. Instead of pouring efforts into control, we become skilled at feeling and build capacity without defenses as a compassionate witness of our own experience.
Those defenses have been with us for a long time and once served a purpose – they still might – so this is done in a therapeutic way. The therapeutic relationship serves to create conditions of safety that allow those defenses to be softened, enabling deeper work. Then, we test and explore in a structured stepwise fashion that centers learning.
Reduced anxiety and distress are side effects of new, powerful learning that reconnects you to your personal values and life force.