How the Nervous System Uses Arousal to Support Life

Experience Shapes the Nervous System

It’s much deeper than being “triggered”

Our nervous system is shaped through experience. Like all living systems, it works according to the principle of homeostasis, constantly seeking stability and efficiency. One way it does this is by learning from what has happened before.

When we encounter a situation, the brain records the sequence of stimulus and response. Over time, repeated experiences become organized into neural pathways that make it easier for the nervous system to respond in the same way the next time a similar situation occurs.

This is an efficient design. It allows the body to conserve energy by relying on patterns it already knows rather than starting from scratch each time we encounter something new.

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Why do our nervous systems repeat the same patterns?

Organic Learning Trains the Brain

A natural example can be seen in how animals learn to navigate their environment.

When a deer repeatedly encounters a particular path through the forest, it gradually learns where food can be found, where predators might appear, and which routes provide safety. Over time the path becomes familiar, and the animal moves through it with increasing ease and efficiency.

The nervous system works in a similar way. Experiences that repeat themselves become well-traveled pathways that shape how we automatically respond to the world.

When our experiences involve safety, curiosity, and exploration, the nervous system learns patterns of engagement with life. But when experiences involve overwhelming stress or threat, the system may learn patterns of anxiety, avoidance, or shutdown.

These patterns are not signs of weakness; they are simply the nervous system doing what it was designed to do — learning from experience and conserving energy by repeating what it knows. That means it can get stuck when you do not experience sufficient restoration.

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NERVOUS SYSTEM ACTIVATION

LOW VOLUME BALANCED HIGH VOLUME

🟡 Rest & Restore 🟢 Engagement 🔴 Survival Activation

Recovery Curiosity Fight / Flight

Calm awareness Motivation Anxiety / Avoidance

Restoration Connection Overwhelm

(Dorsal) (Ventral) (Sympathetic)

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Nervous System Volume

Low Volume → Rest and recovery

Moderate Volume → Focus, motivation, engagement

High Volume → Protective survival responses

You can think of nervous system activation like a volume dial.

Low volume supports rest and recovery.
Moderate volume supports focus, engagement, and connection.
Very high volume activates protective survival responses.

Healthy nervous systems can adjust the volume as needed rather than getting stuck at one level.

Many of the practices described above help the nervous system rediscover this natural flexibility.

Nervous System Training: Restores Flexibility

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Human experience is organized around the level of activation in the nervous system — what psychologists call arousal. This activation is what allows us to focus, act, connect with others, and engage with life.

When arousal is balanced, it supports energy, curiosity, motivation, and connection. When it becomes dysregulated through chronic stress or trauma, the same system can become stuck in patterns of anxiety, avoidance, or emotional shutdown.

Polyvagal theory describes how the nervous system shifts between states of rest, engagement, and survival depending on whether we feel safe, supported, or overwhelmed. Healthy nervous systems can move flexibly across this range.

Many people, however, find that their nervous system has become stuck at one extreme or another. The goal of nervous system training is to restore flexibility and responsiveness so that energy supports life rather than survival reactions.

Our nervous system— all of us really— is trained through experience. Our system works through the principle of homeostasis. us to do what we’ve done before so it conserves energy by recording the pattern of lived experience: stimulus-response into neural pathways. They make it easier to act on the stimulus next time you encounter it. Organic example:

Neurofeedback works by helping the brain gradually shift these learned patterns of activation. Rather than forcing change, it gently encourages the nervous system to rediscover more balanced and flexible states.

In this way, neurofeedback supports the same process nature already uses: learning through experience.

The brain receives feedback about its activity and begins to reorganize itself, forming new pathways that support regulation, engagement, and resilience.

By intentionally training the brain, we use our organic pathways to develop the flexibility we need.

The goal is not to eliminate arousal or override the nervous system, but to help it rediscover the natural flexibility that allows energy to support curiosity, connection, and meaningful engagement with life.

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A Stepwise Approach: Polyvagal Training or Neurofeedback

For individuals who are highly sensitive, easily overwhelmed, or simply curious about working with their nervous system more directly, there are several entry points.

Many people begin with gentle regulation practices that help the body rediscover its natural rhythms.

These may include:

Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback
Using tools such as the HeartMath system, individuals learn how breathing, emotion, and attention influence the nervous system. This helps develop awareness of internal signals and the ability to shift physiological states intentionally.

Polyvagal Listening Programs
Auditory programs such as the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) and Rest and Restore Protocol (RRP) stimulate neural pathways involved in listening, safety, and social connection. These programs can help the nervous system shift out of chronic survival activation and toward states of engagement and restoration.

These approaches often serve as a robust entry point for individuals who want to work directly with their nervous system before considering neurofeedback.

I’ve offered the polyvagal oriented training— a form of biofeedback— for many years now and it has been very effective, although different, from the experience of neurofeedback training.

Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback works more directly with the brain’s patterns of activation. By gently guiding the brain toward more balanced states, neurofeedback can help the nervous system reorganize itself and regain flexibility across the full range of activation.

For some individuals this becomes the next step once the nervous system has begun to stabilize through other practices.

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While the nervous system automatically learns patterns through experience, we also have the capacity to become aware of these internal signals. This ability—called interoception—is an important foundation for conscious embodiment and self-regulation.

Simple Relaxation Breathing Exercise

Breathing with conscious awareness is grounding and centering for the whole being. If done properly, research shows that it can provide the following benefits: normalizing the stress response, helping regulate your emotions, reducing anxiety, insomnia, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and ADD, as well as lowering heart rate and reducing blood pressure.

Trauma Treatment in Rapid City, South Dakota encourages patients to practice mindful breathing as a way of coping with stress and anxiety.

The process is simple and doesn’t take too long to learn. Anybody can do it almost anywhere as a quick exercise to get your stress levels in check. Patients can choose to combine this technique with other elements, such as trauma therapy, aromatherapy, and music.

Here’s how you can start.

• While sitting down - back straight against the chair - put one hand on your chest and one above your stomach.

• The hand on your stomach should rise as you breathe in through your nose and slowly exhale through your mouth.

• Try and push out as much air as you can while contracting your abdominal muscles.

• Keep breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth. Make sure to inhale enough, so your lower abdomen regularly rises and falls. Count slowly as you exhale.

If you find it challenging to breathe from your abdomen while sitting up, you may try lying down.

Black Hills Center For Healing and Advancement of Psychotherapy provides patients with various approaches to healing through trauma treatments and EDMR in South Dakota. Contact us here for more information.

Tunnel Vision: When you can’t see a way to live anymore

This post is dedicated to survivors of suicide and those who may be suffering. Tuesday, September 10, is International Suicide Awareness Day.  You can break free and live again. Keep reading.

Suicide is mostly equated with depression. Depression is a common experience in our society. Its frequently diagnosed, sometimes in routine medical settings, such as primary care, where it is also usually treated with medication.  Aside from the strong body of research that shows medication alone is actually less powerful than placebo, the biggest problem with this monolithic view of depression is that not all depression is the same.  Depression that stems from unresolved trauma requires a different response than the  conventional treatments for depression. Trauma itself is not a monolith. We respond to developmental trauma differently than adult onset, single incident trauma. Of course, plenty of adult onset, single incidents can occur to someone who has experienced developmental trauma.  The rest of this article is based on my experience of hundreds of clients impacted by development, especially attachment related trauma. The opportunity for lasting impact is extremely high during these “formative” years. They are called formative for a reason. 

Let’s take a look at how these experiences can lead to a legacy for the adults who remain haunted by events, feeling much like the proverbial unwanted gifts that “don’t stop giving”. Let’s take a look at how you may not even realize when you are in the process of getting gifts. 

For ordinary experiences, we have ordinary memories. The experiences that matter more to us will be translated into memory. If they are particularly meaningful they may possibly become part of one’s narrative, one’s “story”. No matter how meaningful, ordinary memories fade. Take old photographs, for example.  With enough time, it becomes hard to remember details. The experience isn’t as vivid, perhaps its even fuzzy. It may not even feel like “you” anymore.  You may not even be able to relate to how you were feeling in that  photo.  Other times, you may feel something completely contrary to what the picture capture. Just ask any divorced person who looks at his or her wedding photos!

Remember the last time you felt like that? How about the time before that? And the time before that? Is it still true?

Now, let’s compare this with how chronic trauma gets captured (Keep in mind, this is a very simplified illustration. )  Remember trauma lies in the experience, not in the event. By knowing “what happened” to a person, you don’t really know what someone’s actual  experience of it was like, unless they choose to share that with you and you happen to empathize strongly with their experience.  Even still, your empathic experience won’t be an exact replica of anyone else’s. It’ll be your experience superimposed upon theirs. We are all uniquely alone in our subjective experiences. 

Imagine a fresh roll of photography film; yes, we are going old school here. The nervous system sets the lens speed for the photograph. Traumatic experiences require a particular setting, which captures it differently.  The lens freezes a particular moment, zooms in, and  captures the affective and somatic aspects of experience, and snaps the photo. Like ordinary photos, that moment is isolated from the continuous whole experience. 

In ordinary memories, the brain functions involved are associated with language and other abstract capacities. Traumatic events inhibit those functions in order to be able to use  areas of the brain reserved for managing core survival needs. Therefore, the sense of time, as well as the ability to create your own “story”, to interpret and to make meaning from it, is offline. The brain functions connected with somatic and emotional experiences store those experiences in a manner that is immediate, I.e., not affected by time, or space, or symbolic functions associated with interpretation or meaning.  The effect of this on the subject of this experience completely identifies with the snapshot taken of that moment in time, as a true reflection of “me” and “mine”, without being impacted by perspective or context. 

The manner in which these images are captured determine how they are stored and later retrieved. Unlike ordinary experiences, the memories aren’t processed once and for all. That would make them be as vulnerable to erosion as ordinary memories. Instead, they remain a negative on the subconscious.  Somatic sensations,  including emotions and affects, are retrieved as they occur:  in the flesh. Rather than “looking at a photo”, that seems separate from you in time. the memory is re-experienced in your very body. Its the only way to reencounter somatic experience: on an immediate level. It’s not abstracted. The imprint remains there like a negative. You can move on, even forget about it, and there it stays like a ghost. 

When conditions (aka triggers) in the here and now resonate with the feelings or sensations stored in that negative, the original experience is “released”, like a hologram.  The 3D experience of the negative gets superimposed upon current reality.  What’s most effected is the sense of self of the subject. If you felt small, helpless, vulnerable or if you felt angry, rageful, even, or if you felt shame, humiliated, then angry but unsafe too, so you dare only to turn it against yourself. All these experiences are captured in a separate negative, like a glint of stars in the lights, and when the negative is released in the moment, you step into these experiences, as if you put on a  pair of glasses in which you can only see through those eyes, those old prisms that you now interpret reality through. 

If you live with a particular set of glasses on for a while, you may forget what it used to look like. Sometimes that looks like chronic depression. Other times, long term body image issues. Other times, its acting out behaviors, like binge eating, drinking, using drugs, cutting. Other times, it can be a dissociative response, leading to a sense of depersonalization, like who you see in the reflection isn’t you. You may be unable to relate to parts of your life, to feel certain things, or to feel numb, or shame and disgust may intrude on particular experiences. 

After a while, it may feel like the only escape from this one dimensional hell is to kill yourself. The person who wants to die feels that death is less painful than living. Living is painful. There’s loss and pain, physical, emotional, psychological. However, the defining characteristic is that life is a constant state of flux. Its a process of change. Nothing lasts forever, even what we most want to hold onto. When a state of being seems to last forever, something has gone wrong in how you relate to experience. That is not living. It is not natural. So give yourself an opportunity and seek services from a qualified person, someone who has had experience working with experiences similar to yours. Keep searching for the right person to help you through the stuck experiences you have living within you. The past is not past yet. It needs to become past, in order for you to have different and new experiences.

A New Face: Change in Spring

( Post-traumatic Growth is PTSG)

Spring is about life, growth, change, the ceaseless cycle of life and death. Endings make way for new beginnings, or better put: beginning anew. In the spirit of Spring, I invite you to join me in an exploration of what’s come to pass and what you see on the horizon. An inventory of sorts. What have you learned from the past year?

It seems to me that the New Year concept falls entirely in the wrong season. Don’t you think? Each season has a primary purpose. To fulfill that purpose, each season has qualities that are strong and others that are weak. The particular constellation of energy patterns that we experience in a given season is attributable to the balance of the elements. Elements are: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and the fifth, Space, enables the other’s to form. Space creates the context by which all else occurs. Each session has, at it’s heart, dominant element(s). Thanks to those elements, summer expresses itself in that familiar way we tend to love. As does winter, even when we don’t particularly love it.

In CAM (complementary alternative medicines) such as TCM and Ayurveda, each individual possesses a dominant element, or set of elements, as well. We are part of the fabric of life, so what’s out there, also finds itself in us. The dynamic interaction between the elements provides us the ground of our strengths and weaknesses. Of course, experiences will ultimately shape any raw material. Thankfully, we have control over our experiences, even when we think we don’t. (Some of the elements have different names in TCM vs Ayurveda but the principles are consistent).

When you align your purpose with the larger purpose unfolding in nature, you are far more likely to be successful. The New Year, in my world, would accompany the crucial practice of “Retrospection”. First you need to really understand what’s transpired and what that is showing you you need to address. Then you can begin to make resolutions, or better yet, plans to make it happen. The dead of winter is appropriate for January through February. It is not the right time to try to make changes. Instead, take the opportunity of the quiet and still energy around you to introspect and retrospect. Then, come March, you’ll have a good idea of what you need to focus on the rest of the year.

Since I do not preach what I don’t practice myself, my end of year review led me to change the face of this blog, to bring it more in line with BHCHAP’s mission: to promote Post-traumatic Growth or PTSG.

I’d like to introduce the Bodhisattva, Ksitigarbha, best known as Jizo, a prevalent feature of Japanese culture. Jizo will be guiding us on our journey. (You’ll see why in just a moment).

Little Jizo statues seen at a park in Japan.

But first:

What is a Bodhisattva? Good question.

A Bodhisattva is very much like a Patron Saint in other religions. A practitioner of dharma, the wisdom practices taught by the Buddha, upon “awakening”, realizing enlightenment, dedicates him or herself to aid sentient beings until the very last one has also attained enlightenment. Bodhisattvas represent different aspects of Enlightenment. Unlike other religions, they are not seen as individual “entities” or “figures” but faces, or elements, of what is essentially “whole”. Just like the interplay of elements gives rise to our world. Without “Air” for instance, we have nothing. There’s air in water. There’s air in fire. There’s air in earth. Everything is interdependent. Nothing is missing. Such are Bodhisattvas, they are elements of Enlightenment: a particular Bodhisattva may represent any facet of the path, such as wisdom- realizing how things really work; others may focus on compassion; others on overcoming obstacles that are extremely tough.

Some, like Jizo, focus on particular kids of human experience, particular kinds of human suffering. Jizo is the Bodhisattva of Lost Souls, of Travelers, of Children and Animals. Travelers does not refer to vacationers, rather to the recently departed. The photograph shows a Japanese custom: parents of deceased children will offer clothing to Jizo statues, much like Christians in this country might light a candle.

Jizo is the perfect Bodhisattva for my clients. Among the feelings I hear people share about is that of feeling “lost”, “unseen”, “unheard”, “not recognized”, “afraid to be authentic”, among many others. Among the experiences of abuse, neglect, or other violations or injuries my ears are entrusted with hearing, I see how suffering in childhood (beyond what can be supported), causes a rupture in the unified field of their sense of self. And as they grow up, that rupture grow up within them.

PTSG is the experience of reclaiming your sense of self, of wholeness, and all of what that means: your strengths, resources, and ultimately your whole hearted ability to love, without reservation or apprehension: unabashed.

Using Neuroscience to Boost Motivation

Too many people fail to achieve a goal and internalize self-blame, failure, shame, guilt.  These invited guests, in turn, make it far more likely you won't accomplish much going forward.

Here's the good news: You don't possess an internal lack, a defect, a fatal flaw. Your perspective does. You are chasing "bright, shiny objects" out there, rather than connecting with your power, "In here" (points toward your body). Your motivation is not in the object or state you are chasing. It is in you.

1) Get clear on what YOU want to get out of it. What's the difference for you. 

2) Connect to that motivation through.... (drum roll please).... your emotions. 

3) Let those emotions move you. They make your motivation come alive so that it becomes momentum. (The word 'emotion' originates from an Ancient Roman word for "move". ) Your emotions are very special critters indeed!  Stop judging them,  accusing them, rejecting them, and start befriending them!

Keep in mind that your feelings aren't just 'there', they are attached to you. Rightly so, since they are a part of you. Every time you judge, blame, and shame them, you are doing that to yourself. But this is another post. Ahh... the power of association.

I leave you with a guide I created for you so you can "Move into Action".  

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100% Of You

“Be there with one hundred percent of yourself. In every moment of your daily life. That is the essence of  Buddhist meditation. Each of us knows that we can do that, so let us train to live each moment of our daily life deeply. That is why I like to define mindfulness as the energy to helps us to be there 100%,  It is the energy of your true presence.”

Thich Nhat Hahn

Being fully present requires 100 percent of you. .So does the experience  everyone craves: wholeness. What can better capture the experience of "healing" of "recovery" than wholeness? To be whole, to give 100 percent, you need to do more than simply accept what's ‘easy'. After all, its easy to accept yourself when you are feeling at “ease”. 

The challenge is this: Honor your self enough to accept all of yourself. Especially what makes you most uncomfortable! Honor yourself by allowing all of your feelings. Make space for all of you, without judgment and without censure. Celebrate all of you because without all of it, you wouldn't be who you are;

Ask yourself, in each day, how much of yourself do you really allow in? How much of you is actually present, and exposed to the light?

Lessons in Acceptance

There are degrees to everything, including acceptance. There’s "acceptance of .....". though living in acceptance. In 12 Step Recovery, it’s described as “Surrender”. Much like vision, hearing, and motor control, acceptance requires practice to master, to really develop it to its fullest potential. 

Partial acceptance is really another way of saying partial denial. The glass is definitely half full but you still run out of water nonetheless. 

I really bought into the belief early in life that, "If you want something bad enough, apply equal amounts of will and determination until you make it happen." "Fight for what is important to you." Another word for fight is: struggle. The opposite of struggle is ease. Who would prefer struggle over ease? Why?

If it requires Herculean will and determination perhaps you should consider more closely whether it is really in your highest good.  This idea brings us back to relationship with the organic wisdom that governs life in the Universe. The same organic wisdom that you feel in your belly what we call intuition. It’s a different kind of "knowing".

The presence of struggle is also the absence of synergy. The tell tale sign of synergy is ease. The absence of synergy lets you know hat all the necessary ingredients are not present in the appropriate proportions. In other words, your instrument is out of tune.

Now, its one thing to tune your instrument. Its an entirely different thing to try to rebuild it so that it plays in tune. The latter is not in keeping with the balance, or the wisdom, that already exists in the Universe. Its out of balance. That's a sign to: "Think again." Reevaluate. Reconsider.

People make this error most often in relationships with others. You see the potential of the relationship if the other person changed, in one form or fashion,  and so you enter into a relationship with the changed person (who only exists in your mind). Then you wonder why you are unhappy with the real relationship! 

I failed to recognize the real reality of my circumstance. I only saw its potential. Trust me, that is no longer the case. I got the message! Not only do I see it in regard to this issue but I see how deeply my beginnings as a scrappy young girl who had to fight for what she wanted, on her own, in the concrete jungle of NYC, lodged within me, so much so they are still active. I developed an over-reliance on will and determination, so much so that I missed the implications of that on my very own needs.  I wasn't listening to myself. I was deaf to a part of my relationship with myself.

If I listened I would've heard this: "There is a better way for you, provided that you are willing to accept the reality of your circumstance NOW. You can't raise the bar and ask that your needs be met if you are ignoring the fact that they aren't met NOW. Stop focusing on the "potential", and how good it'll be in the future. You know, the future?  One of the 2 times that aren't real, for all intents and purposes? (The past being the other). Your quality of life is only meaningful in the Here and Now.

I ask you this:

Are you satisfied with it? If so, why?  If not, why not?  What are you going to do about it?

Side note- A client recently asked me a question after I used the word "Universe". I presumed everyone understood it the same way but in some cultures it has a different connotation. To him: "evolution", so it implied an "atheistic" perspective.  I didn't mean it that way at all. I do not mean a Supreme Being, or the lack thereof.  I do not do "who" or "who’s". I do "How".  "The Universe" is my shorthand for the organic intelligence that instructs and coordinates the balance of life. And life is on a continuum. As I continue to meditate and evolve, I hope to know the rest of the continuum. For now, we have the continuum of all life on the planet. And it needs our attention.

Growth is the purpose of life

One of the limitations of practicing as a therapist is that labels, namely of symptoms, or “problems”,  have increasingly dominated the work over the past 20 years. The more the problems dictate the work, the more freedom and creativity gets pushed out. Therapy is both science and art. As I shared in Being Luminous, I started The Manifest Project, an online self development workshop series, so that more persons can discover how to overcome the near centrifugal force that "problems" exert over their lives. The more you move into the solution, the more you embrace a more constructive, creative process. Growth is the definition of living, as well as the ultimate goal of therapy, so we keep our focus on that organic truth.  The Manifest Project embraces the goals of Self Mastery and Life Mastery, NOT to "Overcome ___________ (insert problem here)”. As long as you focus on what is wrong or missing, you do not see the opportunities in the moment to achieve your vision. You remain defined by what you most want to be free from.  

When I first began working on The Manifest Project,  I set out to create a process that tapped the most powerful mechanisms we know of to date, enabling you to have maximal influence over your own life, your very self. That is how it should be. Your life is your masterpiece, beginning with your very self. You are here to unfold the ultimate creative process. Your purpose is to craft an authentic experience in the world that enables you to reshape it according to your unique vision. It is a sacred journey, a heroic one. The material world constitutes your raw materials. It provides you with the tools we need. It is the means, not the point. As you develop your skill in manifestation, your material conditions will expand, according to your ability, to your purpose. By focusing on the material first, you lose most of the power you have over it.

My life has been nothing if not an immersive experience in transformation. My own life experience demanded it, starting at an unnaturally early age.  It has been a quest to uncover any and all effective tools and resources by which the essence of self-mastery and life mastery could be distilled. Beginning with self-study in psychospiritual methods, to formal study in the cutting edge of psychological research, neuroscience, even at the doctoral level, I dedicated my life to share my discoveries with my clients', who desperately sought to transform their lives and their persons from deeply afflicted states of suffering (most commonly trauma and addiction).

As I indicated in Being Luminous, I did not create the method (TMP) out of thin air. A more appropriate way to describe the process of creation is that it began to crystallize. The more I synthesized what I knew in the service of helping people, including myself, both psychotherapeutically and spiritually, the more feedback I received by way of the universal elements that run throughout our world and ourselves.

My vision deepened beyond what I ever imagined, especially once I published my first book. Being Luminous was the sweet spot in my own cycle of manifestation. Much like a rosebud that unfurls its petals and reveals what it was meant to be all along, I tapped the mother lode, and I have been cultivating the treasures that are springing forth. With gratitude and pleasure, I will share the simple, graceful, yet powerful method to master the principles of manifestation and transformation. Evolve from student to Master.  

The Manifest Project is a synthesis of all the powerful change technologies, interconnected at the point of their synergy, the sweet spot of transformation.  As I described in Being Luminous, you are not separate from what you do. The writing of it led me to a peak experience, an explosion of exponential growth of my own.  Undoubtedly it is a function of my alignment with the sacred lands and sacred animals of my new home, the Black Hills, as it is in my immersion in the techniques.  It led me to uncover a receptivity that transcends intuition and inspiration, something I can best describe as “channeling". Whatever the label, receiving guidance from the abundant natural elements, the intersubjective matrix that runs throughout my (and your) experience, continues to help me evolve the Manifest Project, to make it as simple as possible, suitable for widespread dissemination online.

I will be speaking online on September 4th, 2017 at 6pm MT/8pm ET on The Manifest Project which will be broadcasted.  Check it out here: 

https://greatestyousummit.com

Be well.

Elizabeth Renee

The Relational Matrix

The natural world has much to teach. The conquest mentality has not served us.  I firmly believe animals and other organic life forms were intended to teach us how to relate to our environment, for the highest benefit of all who shared this planet. They could be our mentors to show us the most effective way to be, if we would only develop the capacity to hear and see, on the subtle level required.

We work with subtle qualities of mind through the relational matrix.  It is a false premise that we effect change in other’s by appealing to their reason. If that worked, we would be out of business. Nobody would need a therapist. You only had to read a book, listen to someone and you would “understand”and be changed! It doesn’t work that way at all. 

Therapists’ are able to sense intuitively what a client feels and needs, even when it is still unconscious to the client. Sounds pretty remarkable, no?  To access emerging data from someone else’s unconscious realm, and then to collectively illuminate and transform it, is nothing short of miraculous. The subtle qualities of mind are what attune me with my client so that I can reach him. This connection is the bridge by which I can do anything for, or with, my client.  

 Sometimes I actually experience physical sensations that my client has, although they may not have shared it yet. A knot in my throat, or a tight chest,  gives me exactly the information I need to proceed. Through this intersubjective field, I can read the room, implicitly and nonverbally. I can intervene more effectively. This skill guides me to the next indicated step.  Sometimes it is the lack of vitality, inertia, that enables me to penetrate resistance in the moment. Sometimes that is exactly what lies undeneath a flood of words, which is a very different thing than “mania.”  Being with a client is the only way we can be sure we are on the right track. 

Then there’s the “us”, the unconscious relational matrix in which we, client and therapist, find ourselves. The deep unity that can manifest fear, desire, hate, in transference, and sometimes all of the above.

The ability to attend to the relational matrix is my emphasis in psychotherapy training and supervision. The therapeutic relationship is documented to be one of the most powerful outcome predictors. Most EBTs acknowledge the relationship as a confounding variable.  Depending on the qualities, including the strength of the therapeutic relationship, an evidence-based treatment may not be effectively experienced.

I like to describe therapy as a treatment, in which the relationship is the vehicle by which the cure is delivered. If we were talking about medicine, perhaps an antibiotic, the active ingredient, the cure, like penicillin, would be delivered in a way that the person could ingest and be bioavailable so that the system could utilize it. The cure in our arena is more subtle, yet it behaves in a similar fashion. In order to take effect, what we have to give by way of intervention, has to be taken in and digested. Otherwise, it remains at the level of “information”.

The therapeutic relationship is like none other in the world, except one: the kind of relationship we have with our beloved pets. On a qualitative level, that is.  My photo is of my two furkids: Hope (Rottie) and Cicero (Juliana pig).  Any animal lover will tell you their relationship with their pets is wholly healing.  Now, I love all animals, and I've had amazing relationships with cats. But there’s something about the relationship we have with dogs that most closely brings this to life.

The relational matrix is neglected in psychotherapy outcome research. This, despite all evidence-based practices acknowledging the power of the relationship independent of method! All nod their head at the import of the therapeutic relationship, that it has the power to render an effective treatment ineffective.  Relational dynamics are too qualitative a field to be adapted to objective, quantitative research, at least for now. Eventually, technology and our minds will be capable of more subtle functioning and will discern the nuances and the dynamic elemental patterning that underlies relating and its influence.

I specialize in this area, spending as much time as I can to master the relational arts. It has been the most powerful clinical strength that I possess, my ability to engage and sustain relationships with my clients. You can’t help someone who isn’t in the room. Attrition is the death knell of a therapy practice.

I would love to hear how I can help psychotherapists, especially rural psychotherapists, who have very different reference points for practicing. So, let me know how my training and professional development workshops most useful to you.  Please let me know what you’d like to see, and any thoughts you have. 

Nuances of Growth

Incubation. A potent process. Unconscious processes rule the period of incubation. Energy is latent, quiet, inward. Unlike planting our garden, we do not know when this process ends and something new germinates.  We need not be mindful of it, as it unfolds, although its always optimal to be mindful.   Its an organic process, and as such it operates autonomously, with its many threaded wisdom, working toward a collective goal of growth and evolution. If we do notice it,  we should engage in gentle actions of self care, protecting, nurturing our vulnerable, incipient self.  Our lack of mindful awareness may very well hurt us, if our subjective experience of 'self' during this process mistakes it for inertia, lethargy, laziness, or depression. The first step is to stop judging and to approach ourselves with an openhearted curiosity. If we approach ourselves in this way, we make contact as 'friend to friend' and consequently we will be far more likely to get something beneficial in return.

An Uncommon Therapy: Healing Arts

We embark on a journey together, when we come together in this unique relationship. The voyage requires respect, trust, and close attention to the passages. No journeys are ever identical. Each voyage requires a special map, one that is elaborated as we journey.  As your guide, I keep us on course, and when necessary, change direction so we can arrive where we intended to.

I am skilled in different methods. Methods are tools, instruments we apply to our enterprise. They are not the destination.  We are whole persons, not symptoms. I relate to you, as a whole person, empowering you to co-navigate with me. Your journey is tailored uniquely to you, and the currents at hand.

To help us understand the passing landscapes, I draw from many wisdoms and many cultures. The East offers much insight and practices to achieve a treasured life. The ancient and integral practices are increasingly being validated as effective by Western scientific inquiry. From the West, Humanistic and Psychoanalytic methods, as well as Empirically Validated Therapies (research based) often represented by initials (CBT, ACT, DBT, and even four lettered ones like EMDR and MBSR). I may even encourage you to use some complementary therapies, like aromatherapy. 

The holistic vision, of you, and of the areas of attention, is one of the qualities that makes this an uncommon therapy.  More qualities to follow.... In the meantime, I offer you a quote, one of my favorites, as there are many, that is fundamental to what I consider therapy to be about. Living! Therapy is an inquiry and instrumental guidance that enable maximal living! My method, Dynamic Mind, emphasize the -ing part of living. To live is to act in the world. We act every moment, whether we are aware of it or not, and whether we choose our action or not. Take control of that and change your life exponentially.

““I beg you... have patience with everything unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves, as if they were locked rooms, or books written in a strange language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you know, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, some day... gradually, without even noticing, you may live your way into the answer.””

— Rainier Maria Rilke