Counseling

Counseling relates to creating a therapeutic relationship for support, reparative experiences, and co-regulation.

Therapy, in and of itself, is a relational experience. We will intentionally use our therapeutic relationship to allow for reparative experiences, social engagement, and co-regulation opportunities. What do I mean by that? Many a things.

• Building a relationship with your therapist provides you with the ability and mastery to do that with others outside the therapy room.

• Being able to explore your past and have your therapist respond in a kind, caring, and loving way provides the opportunity for a corrective emotional experience

• Allows for experiences of co-regulation, in which the calm, regulated nervous system of the therapist can act as a master regulator for the therapy room. Thus, creating an environment of regulation or ease.. when you don’t feel that way. Through practicing co-regulation with the therapist, you open up the development or repairing of self-regulation on your own.

“Each time we offer a reflection, we are also quietly repairing/disconfirming attachment wounds that always contain elements of our parents or others not being able to see us because of their own injuries.” —Bonnie Badenoch

Recommended tools for this journey:

• The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships by Bonnie Badenoch, PhD, LMFT

• The Power of Attachment: How to Create Deep and Lasting Intimate Relationships by Diane Poole Heller, PhD

• Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—And Keep—Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller