Imaginal Therapy

Taking an embodied approach to psychotherapy, we can explore inner and outer worlds to support alignment with our deepest truths

Embodied Depth Psychotherapy

Why Imagination and the Body is Key To Transformation

A wonderful teacher once taught me "there are no volunteers in the Bible." None of us choose the suffering that unfolds in our lives. It is painful and often we suffer in silence, sensing that talking about our problems leads to more pain, confusion, guilt, shame, and well, suffering. And, it is true. Sometimes the stories we tell about ourselves, about our lives, about our childhood, our parents, partner, children, culture, only cements the groove in the record. And even going over all the details, the sordid tales of disappointment, hoping for relief and understanding, sometimes leaves us feeling misunderstood, bitter, and mistrusting that we will ever be fully received, seen, and valued. What we really, honestly want, is not for someone to tell us we have problems like depression or anxiety, we want a magic wand, we want transformation.

I am not saying I have a magic wand. (Although, I do; the mighty pen!) What I am saying is we come to therapy when we are lost in the forest. You may be circling the same trail over and over that never really leads you out of the dark. Our chips may be down at the moment and we experience some variation of hopelessness, despair, deception, rage, fear, loss, grief, weariness, isolation, denial, anxiousness, or grasp for control. We need help, the magical kind. The kind that restores hope, awareness, courage, action, connection, belonging, confidence, support, wisdom, discernment, relaxation, and dare, I say, most importantly a sense of play. My job, as I see it, is to be an ally in harnessing the magic that you have, that you were born with, to make sense of it all, get out of the forest safely, restore your vitality, and stay engaged with our humanity to make the journey that is your life.

By cultivating a safe space, beyond just talk, for your mind to connect to your body (mindfulness), a process of self-study will allow me to guide you through the forest to support new pathways of understanding and navigating the terrain. The body and the imagination hold important information to help unlock sometimes hidden or unconscious patterns, wounds, and beliefs. It is my conjecture that healing takes place when we harness the power of the imagination, listen to the wisdom of the body, and value the forest for the lessons it holds to repair matters from the past and find resolve for facing the future through embodied presence.

Sometimes, there are boogeymen, bad witches, mysterious roadblocks, mischievous tricksters, or some matter of dark figures or places in our lives that are haunting or menacing. But together we will gather clues, uncover their true nature, find the elixir in the poison, and break their spell over you. We will trust the realm of the imagination that manifests through dreams, coincidences, symbols, memories, sensations, feelings, and images, that spontaneously emerge to help your body find the present moment resources that create positive and life-affirming shifts. With kindness, compassion, and curiosity, we will explore belief systems and curate experiences that have been missing to support resilience, expansion, and fulfillment.

My hope is that through a therapeutic engagement of your soul, the kingdom will be restored so that you move from states of disenchantment, and even bewitchment, to embodying a natural unfolding tale of true enchantment. By supporting a capacity for meeting needs for safety, intimacy, freedom, and value, I trust that resolutions will organically emerge from your attention to the depths over time. Through this mythopoetic view, we find that our lives are rich with meaning, gifts, purpose, and are an integral part of the world. Ultimately, our experience depends on our courage to surrender our fears, restore our natural instinct and imagine new possibilities.

Methodology

• Animist, Relational & Humanistic to support the bond, boundaries, and better ways of being interconnected

• Imaginal & Jungian Psychology to explore and understand the phenomena of the inner world

• Hakomi Method techniques to discover beliefs, experiences, and organizing principles stored in the body and support healing

• Body/Somatic Awareness & Meditation to create greater capacity for regulation, neuroplasticity, agency and compassion

Areas of focus

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Children, Parenting & Reparenting

• Creativity

• Career

• Chronic Pain

• Couples, Friendship, & Interpersonal relationships

• Family & Blended Family

• Grief, Loss & Seperation

• Identity

• Infertility, Reproductive Health, Pregnancy & Postpartum

• Intimacy & Sexuality

• Spirituality, Integration of Initiations, Ritual / Ceremonial Practices, and Entheogens / Sacred Medicine

• Transitions

• Trauma

Treatment orientation

• Animism, Ancestral, Deep Ecology & Decolonial

• Archetypal, Imaginal & Jungian

• Attachment-based

• Dreamwork

• Experiential

• Family Systems

• Humanistic

• Mindfulness / Presence-centered

• Play therapy

• Relational

• Sandplay

• Somatic & Body-centered

• Psychodynamic

• Transpersonal

• Trauma Resolution

• Systems