The first step to any therapy process is to have an initial consultation over the phone. This is a time for us to see if we would be a good fit as a therapist-client. I like to know what is prompting you to reach out at this time so I can assess if I can help with your specific concerns.

Also, it's important for you to see if you think I'd be a good fit for you. You can ask any questions that you might have about working with me to help you clarify this.

In our first couple of meetings, I'll get more details about your current challenges. I'll also learn about your history. From the challenges you're facing, we'll create goals together. Goals are guidelines that we'll check back in on from time to time in the therapy process. The goals help us have a baseline reference point and help us know if the therapy is being effective for you.

I usually tell clients that we should know if we're making progress after a few months. There are times where progress happens sooner. There are times when it takes much longer. Everyone is different. Yet, in most cases, this is the time range I look for signs of progress in.

Drawing from systems theory, I view our emotional processes as systems. Before I suggest too many behavior changes, I want to see how you naturally process your emotions.

I find that very often one or more of the following challenges are present:

-Struggling to pinpoint underlying feelings or emotions with precision.

-Difficulty tolerating the felt sense of emotions (low affect tolerance) leading to avoidance.

-Difficulty expressing and/or communicating feelings.

-Difficulty connecting emotions to boundaries, limits, needs and desires.

-The presence of highly self-critical parts that judges feelings. This often leads to a lack of self-acceptance, self-love, or invalidation of self.

Observing dreams can be very helpful at this tage. They help illustrate patterns in the emotional system.

This is the stage where I focus on working with your emotions. We'll address areas that need support. Often, this is the beginning of developing insight into your emotional process. My questions will help you see how you manage your emotions.

This awareness is essential in change and growth. As you become more aware of your automatic processes, we can begin to:

-Be curious with them, to gain insight into what role they are playing, what emotions they are connected to

-Learn to accurately identify your emotions. Practice tolerating them. Then, develop skills in expressing yourself. NVC is a resource I use with most clients because its simplicity, elegance, and efficacy. It also helps set the stage for boundary work.

-As you begin to accept some emotions more deeply, we can connect them to your social needs, boundaries, and limits. Our emotions guide us.

-This often helps self-esteem. You learn to move with your emotions, not fight them. You are at war with yourself less, and that frees you up to take care of yourself in new ways. This can be relieving.

-We start to focus on boundaries. What are they? How do you know you have them? What happens when they are crossed? How can you express them?

This is when we start to connect how your current automatic ways of processing are tied to your emotional development in childhood.

This leads us to discussing how childhood experiences in our families have impacted our self-perception and the way we manage our emotions. We also can connect with how these strategies have impacted our relationship to ourselves and others.

This is not only an intellectual process. It isn't about necessarily recounting this or that experience, or blaming our parents. This is about observing how our bodies and emotions were imprinted by our early relationships. We form 'templates' from these relationships. We apply them to our relationship to ourselves. And, we apply them in our relationships with others.

This stage is often when we begin to bring in the frame of inner child work. The inner child is a name to describe the summation of imprints and experiences we had in our younger years. It is helpful to see it as a 'part' of ourselves or as an 'inner child.' Then, we can start to talk with this part inside of us. We can do so in ways that promote healing, compassion, and growth.

At this stage clients may feel that they don't want or need to continue therapy. Perhaps they have been able to find new ways to relate to their emotional system, to improve their expression of feelings or to develop a loving and protective relationship with their inner child.

Clients feel confident in their ability to tolerate their emotional states and to express their needs and limits in relationships.

Clients may still get activated or dysregulated, however they feel equipped to manage it in ways that are emotionally healthy rather than damaging to self or other.

Clients may decide that one day they'd like to return to therapy to continue to deepen their growth

I call this Stage X because it is the backdrop of the rest of the stages. I may utilize ideas from here in earlier stages, but I break this out here as a way to denote the transpersonal element that is ever-present.

Here our focus is in situating our psychological and emotional development into larger questions about meaning, purpose, and spirituality in our lives. We may come to understand our challenges as opportunities in our paths of development.

We may focus more heavily on dreams as a source of guidance for understanding whatever deeper conflicts we have not resolved may be, or simply what opportunities for further growth we have.

We may directly explore themes in transpersonal experience such as spirituality, spiritual experiences, nonduality, nondual awareness, meditation, fulfillment.

We may engage the client's higher self through hypnosis.