"It is the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary."  -- Paulo Coelho 

Gottman Method Couples Therapy

As a Gottman Level 1 Trained therapist, I can help you and your partner learn strategies to:

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• listen with more understanding

• reduce negative conflict

• deepen friendship

• promote more satisfying intimacy

 

These tools can help committed partners in the early stages of a relationship, as well as restore healthy functioning to relationships that are distressed, stuck in chronic conflict, coping with infidelity, or engaging in other destructive patterns. 

 

I can teach you seven components of healthy relationships:

 

• Build Love Maps: maintain awareness of your partner's world

• Share Fondness and Admiration: make deposits into the Emotional Bank Account

• Turn Towards Instead of Away: accept bids for emotional connection

• The Positive Perspective: a positive perspective occurs when the friendship of your marriage is strong

• Manage Conflict: accept influence from your partner: be open to compromise, discuss your problems: take turns listening to one another about perpetual issues and practice self-soothing: keep yourself calm

• Make Life Dreams Come True: find ways to support each other's life goals and dreams

• Create Shared Meaning: build a shared sense of purpose. What is your mission and legacy?

 

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Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)

CBT encourages you to challenge distorted thoughts and change destructive patterns of behaviors. Using exercises in sessions and at home, you will develop coping skills to change negative thinking, problematic emotions and behaviors. CBT has been clinically proven to help clients in a relatively short amount of time and is appropriate for children, adolescents and adults.

 

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Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

DBT focuses on helping you apply skills to specific challenges and events in your life. There are four skills taught in DBT: 

 

• Mindfulness: the practice of being fully aware and present in this one moment.

• Distress Tolerance: how to tolerate pain in difficult situations, not change it.

• Interpersonal Effectiveness: how to ask for what you want and say no while maintaining self-respect.

• Emotion Regulation: how to effectively manage and change the way you feel and cope with situations. 

 

 

Solution- Focused Brief Therapy

Solution-focused therapy, sometimes called "brief therapy," focuses on finding solutions in the present and exploring one's hope for the future. It can be used along with other therapy styles and with people of all ages.  This type of therapy can help you map out the small and large changes necessary to realize your vision. The goal is for you to recognize that you already have the skills and strength to survive and you can use those strengths in all other areas of your life. 

 

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Mind-Body Connection

As a Certified Personal Trainer, I have a special interest in the mind-body connection. When you are stressed, anxious or upset, your body reacts in a way that might tell you something isn't right.  This can affect the way you think, feel and act. By combining the knowledge of fitness and mental health skills, I can provide you with tips to manage your emotional health. I have a clear understanding of how chronic pain and injuries cause emotional stress and how strengthening your mind-body connection can reduce risk of injuries and promote health.  

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"Esperar es doloroso. Olvidar es doloroso. Pero no saber qué hacer es el peor tipo de sufrimiento".  

     -- Paulo Coelho