Individual Adult Sessions (in person and virtual): Individual adult sessions are 45 minutes long and focus on the specific challenges that you want to work on. We agree on our goals together at the beginning of treatment and revise them when necessary. Internal Family Systems, Somatic Experiencing, and creative art therapy techniques are the main avenues for therapeutic change. Some techniques may be used more that others based on your individually tailored plan.
Individual Child and Adolescent Sessions (in person and virtual): Individual child sessions are 45 minutes long and incorporate skill building, emotional regulation, and art and play therapy techniques to help the child learn how to overcome their difficulties in age-appropriate ways. If a child suffers from ADHD, a conduct disorder or developmental delay, sessions are geared to address their specific diagnosis. Collateral sessions with the child’s parent or guardian are scheduled during regular intervals to help them best support their child and to discuss progress.
Supervision: As a New York State licensed Creative Arts Therapist (LCAT), I offer individual supervision to creative arts therapists working towards their license or seeking support for their clinical work.
Creativity Workshops and Trainings: In collaboration with other mental health professionals, my practice provides short-term trainings and workshops for educators and health care professionals to help them cope with burn-out, as well as to provide them with specific art therapy-based clinical skills that can help them best address their clients’ needs. Please contact me for further information about these workshops.
I am a psychotherapist trained to work with individuals and families in many different ways, using approaches that are tailored to each individual or family . One of the tools I have at hand as a creative arts therapist is using art-making as part of the healing process. You do not need to be an artist to use art in this way! As an art therapist, I can guide you through the use of different expressive materials to support your personal therapeutic process. The purpose of art making in therapy is not to create a finished product, but to support integration and healing through accessing the non-verbal and creative centers that each individual is inherently endowed with. The use of art in therapy is particularly beneficial when working through traumatic experiences, as well as for adults and children who suffer from depression and anxiety. It’s been shown to be effective for individuals with ADHD, speech or developmental delays, or neurobiological conditions that affect executive functioning. It’s also highly effective for individuals who simply have a hard time verbalizing their difficulties and may find alternative forms of expression a more direct way to communicate their needs.
For more information about art therapy, please consult the American Art Therapy Association.
Somatic Experiencing is a model for working through stress and trauma developed by Dr. Peter Levine as a result of his work in medical biophysics, neuroscience, and psychology.
Through his research and clinical work, Dr. Levine reached the understanding that “trauma originates as a response in the nervous system” rather than being in “the event” itself. He found that supporting clients in reestablishing the natural equilibrium of their nervous system allows trauma symptoms to resolve. With this understanding, a comprehensive system of trauma treatment evolved. In Dr. Levine’s words:
“Somatic Experiencing is a short-term naturalistic approach to the resolution of post-traumatic stress reactions. It is based upon the ethological observation that animals in the wild utilize innate mechanisms which regulate and neutralize high levels of arousal associated with defensive survival behaviors. Somatic Experiencing normalizes the symptoms of trauma, which bind this arousal, and offers the steps needed to resolve activation and heal trauma.”
For more information about Somatic Experiencing and the training of Somatic Experiencing Practitioners (SEP’s) please refer to the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a model of treatment first developed in the early 1980’s by Dr. Richard C. Schwartz, who had trained in marriage and family therapy. Dr. Schwartz formulated IFS by applying his knowledge of systems theory to what he was observing in, and hearing from, individual clients.His clients spoke about “parts” of themselves that had specific roles, goals, and burdens, and which at times were in conflict with other “parts” of themselves that had different agendas. While the parts his clients spoke about might have sometimes been in conflict, or found themselves in extreme roles, they all had the overarching role of protecting the client from pain, unresolved feelings, or negative beliefs often held by other “parts” that were more deeply buried in their system. A main tenet of IFS is that all of us naturally contain a multiplicity of parts. Furthermore, the model considers that we all have a core Self that can guide our parts into a more harmonious relationships with each other and the world. IFS looks to support clients in accessing this compassionate Self in themselves and building relationships between that Self and the rest of the system, so that parts can heal and unburden themselves.
For more information, please consult: https://ifs-institute.com/