About
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I have been a therapist since 1985, most of the time spent in private practice in New York City. I have always wanted to help people reduce suffering and manage the intense stress that living in our culture produces. This desire actually began with my wanting to understand my own confusion and suffering. In my twenty-five years of working with clients, I have discovered a few things that underpin my approach to working with people.
Firstly, I discovered that when we become overloaded with stress, there will be automatic mechanisms that take over in order to manage the pressure within. So we find ourselves behaving in ways that seems contrary to our higher intentions and goals.
Secondly, we are instinctual creatures and it is at the level of the instincts that is most important to living happily. If we think that because we ‘believe it’, it is so, then we are sadly disappointed. We cannot over-ride our instinctual nature. And so I have sought training in systems which have a direct impact on our nervous system and reducing fight and flight tendencies and encourage relaxation.
And thirdly, the nature of our brain (Central Nervous System) is that it is adaptable in its very nature. In other words, if we know how, we can actually change our conditioned responses in life, to some degree. But again, this needs to happen at the level of our automatic survival self, not merely in the cognitive realm. We can think that we are relaxed; that doesn’t mean the we are actually.
And lastly, I recognized many years ago how delicate our nervous systems are and how chronic and acute stress play such a negative role in our ability to adapt to life’s constant change. It limits our ability to adapt.
We have natural limits as humans and once we go past these limits, our organism becomes overloaded. Overload is what causes us to behave in ways that often shocks us. Anger, depression, anxiety, obsessive thinking, fear of interacting with others, poor focus to name a few, are all manifestations of psychological overload. But we can now better train an individual how to reduce this stress response and live a calmer, more present life where satisfaction and happiness are more within reach, in the present. This has been my personal experience and I love helping others to be able to experience this too. It is very rewarding work.
