I have been working with couples, individuals, families and groups since 1991. (yikes!) I bring so much experience and passion to my work. I feel grateful to have a job where I can help others have extraordinary relationships and lives. Thank you.
For over 15 years now, I have been deep in the study of Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples and Individuals. The work is beautiful and easily integrated into one’s life and relationship.
I went through the certification process which is quite arduous and thorough. Those of us who do get certified had to show through video and transcripts of our couples sessions the depth of knowledge and effectiveness of our work. Please refer to the www.iceeft.com site for the studies about this work and its effectiveness in helping couple’s create secure connection within themselves and with each other. The work is beautiful and easily integrated into one’s life and relationship. I was also endorsed and Certified by the International Center of Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy to be a Supervisor and train other therapists in the EFT method.
One of the reasons I am so passionate about the work (besides its incredible effectiveness) is that I come from beautiful, loving parents who did not know how to repair hurts and regain the deep love that they had and so divorced when I was a teenager. I saw how destructive this was to them and to their children. If I can help prevent that for other couples and kids I want to do it. Couples love and connection is so real and yet injuries happen and they don’t get repaired. Also, misunderstandings happen through their negative cycle or negative pattern of interaction.
EFT, Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples is profoundly transformative and healing for both partners. It inspires me and motivates me to help couples work through injury and misunderstandings to reunite to the love that drew them together in the first place. Through the couples work we can have an effect on children of all ages to see and believe in repair, and trust in lasting love and secure connection. This has ramifications on the future of our world.
EFT is being practiced all over the world today and is the number one most effective couple’s work being done. Refer to: www.iceeft.com to read the research.
I am also very interested in and study healthy sexuality and creating deeply rewarding sexual experience within your couple relationship. The work is effective for any couple, gay, straight or bi. I have seen many couples deepen this connection and expand their menu through exercises, intimate work and communication.
Recently (2017) I attended a Congress on Attachment and Sexuality in Rome. We focused on the key to optimal sex: secure attachment, sex as a safe adventure and being adventurous within secure attachment, the science of sexual wellbeing, moving from sexual disconnection to sexual discovery, living in a pornified world, and healing infidelity and shaping optimal sex. Our sexual connection is another way we feel secure attachment.
I want to refer everyone to Hold Me Tight Workshop in SF with Dr. Michelle Gannon and Dr. Sam Jinich. I have had the great fortune to be trained and supervised by them in my EFT journey. Their two day workshop is a must for any relationship. It is a two day experience filled with rich information about creating a secure attachment with your partner and helps you identify what brings you closer and the ways you do this and what is distancing/disconnecting and the ways we do this. It is deep, rewarding, educational and fun! This is a gift to any relationship.
I have had the great fortune and honor to study with Bruce Ecker, the originator of Coherence Therapy for over twenty years now. I am in an ongoing consultation group with him which meets every three weeks in his Oakland office. Bruce is brilliant and can get his thoughts and work across in the most simple, yet deep and understandable ways. He is the best teacher I have ever had the privilege to work with. His work and studying with him has made my work more efficient, effective, powerful and heartfelt. Please visit: www.coherencetherapy.com.
Emotional Brain Training are groups that I lead, after becoming Certified by Laurel Mellin, the originator of the work. I read her book, The Pathway, in 2004 and felt very drawn to the work. I started leading my own groups using her methods. I went through her group process which entails a one-hour group meeting and experiential work in the group and by going through seven journals: Sanctuary, Authenticity, Vibrancy, Integrity, Intimacy, Spirituality, and Freedom. The support group and the journals are profoundly healing and powerful. I decided to be trained by Laurel in the work and was certified in 2007 and have been leading tele-groups in the method since then. I so believe in support groups to help us stay in touch with and organize our internal experience and give/receive support!
Attachment Theory has been an interest of mine since the early 2000’s when I learned of John Bowlby’s work. I did a fantastic 10-day training in Washington with the Circle of Security. (www.circleofsecurity.com) It was one of my favorite trainings on Attachment Theory. For 10 days we studied what is called The Strange Situation which is a research project to determine secure vs. insecure children. We watched many video taped Strange Situations where a parent and their child are in a room together with a stranger and the parent leaves for a minute and the child is left alone with the stranger. The parent returns after less than a minute and we analyze the child’s reactions to the parent leaving and coming and to the stranger to determine security or insecurity. We then developed a treatment plan to help the parents of insecure (anxious, avoidant or disorganized) children become secure. It was fascinating and inspiring. It was from this training that I developed a two-hour class on How to Raise Secure Kids. I still give this class today to those interested. Both Emotional Brain Training and Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couple’s are based on Attachment Theory (how security is developed and how we develop that within a couple).
I was raised to be independent. Perhaps because my Mom wished she had developed herself more before she became a stay-at-home-mom for four children. I also was very sensitive and aware of what others were feeling. Because of some early trauma, I worked hard to be perfect so everything would work out in my family. When my older sister died in a car accident at 20 (I was 19), my family fell apart. Truly, everything fell apart. I didn’t know how to help and there wasn’t much help in the 70’s so I turned to food for comfort. I developed a sugar addiction. I didn’t know how to reach out for help and didn’t know who to reach out to because my family was completely devastated by the loss and none of us knew how to handle our experience. Ten years after the loss of my sister, I found a therapist and started my own healing work around my sugar/food addiction and learning to sit with my experience and learning how to grieve. I was introduced to 12-step work and loved it. The combination of 12-step, therapy and other support taught me to reach out for support. Now, instead of reaching to a substance, I reach to a person/therapist/support group for help.
If you are suffering, it means you need support. I have learned over the years how wonderful support is and I do not hesitate to reach out for help in many ways. Please know that I can help you and if I can’t I will know someone who can. Support is the key to having your great life.
I would like to mention one other training that has been the most instrumental training in helping me learn about myself, take care of myself, and move through my own blocks to having the life and the love that I always knew must be possible. Total Integration Institute is located now in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. In the early 80’s when I started working with them, they were located in Marin County. Their premier workshop, Living Freedom, is a five day event that is immensely healing, renewing and educational on all levels of mind, body and spirit. I highly recommend their work. I have participated in many of their events over the years and I am always moved by how much I learn, grow and expand in my own consciousness and my living freedom. I highly recommend any of their events, especially, Living Freedom! www.TotalIntegrationInstitute.com
For resources, web pages, books, and videos, please see my Resource page.
Thank you for taking the time to read about my experience and my passion for the work.
Wishing you love and connection to yourself and to others.
