OFFERING SOMATIC PSYCHOTHERAPY ONLINE - Q&A

Q: How do you do somatic psychotherapy online? Does it work? A: Yes, absolutely, and it is a great way of working!

As we work together, video allows me to visually track you ways that you unconsciously express your emotional challenges and then support you in becoming familiar with yourself from the inside. During sessions, I will ask you to position the camera so I can see your head and upper torso, and so you can also see me. We will pay careful attention moment to moment to what is happening in your mind body and emotions and the relationship, sensing together. In fact, we have the advantage of a mirror, of seeing your own image, when appropriate, so that working online can be used to heighten awareness and change.

Q: What special skills do you bring towards doing therapy by video?

I have done over 100 training consultations in approach that uses video recording (with consent) to be able to review visual non verbal cues and “mind body” pathways of anxiety, along with extensive training. In the approach I use, recording sessions can be a regular part of my practice to improve my therapeutic effectiveness with you. Therapists who use video in training have been shown in research to accelerate their clinical skills most rapidly. I bring that experience directly to working online with you.

Q: How can you address physical symptoms of anxiety if you can’t “touch”? A: Yes. We do this through empowering you with knowledge of yourself.

My evolution towards studying mind body psychotherapy approaches to address emotional issues showing up in the body, began with extensive training in touch based somatic therapies, and 20 years as a Feldenkrais practitioner. It has incredible value on the physiological level and in regulating anxiety, or supporting someone to soften tension blocking accessing feeling, or working through movement patterns. This can be reparative for severe trauma or neuromuscular issues.

However, touch is a tool not the change itself. It is the borrowed support of another.

As I have evolved as a mind body psychotherapist, I believe whatever the approach it is crucial to address the emotional roots of somatic symptoms.

We all are born with the deep innate ability to feel for ourselves, unfortunately often supressed. My work has evolved as I have come to support clients to become empowered in shifting the psychological patterns, or habitual mechanisms, for suppressing your emotions or becoming anxious in the first place. What you gain from working with me is that I have a long experiential knowledge of sensing and knowing ways of moving holding and feeling from the inside. This supports me to attune to you.

I am committed to empowering you to claim your own knowledge of yourself. I support you to go beyond “calming techniques” like breathing exercises, exercise, meditation, “distraction techniques” - to address psychological level of physical repression, conversion or flight/fight responses or dysfunctional emotional patterns. Working together in an active, gentle yet challenging way, we can support you to work through buried emotional blocks and work through issues that have led to mental health symptoms in your life. This often results in seeing the link between interpersonal patterns, healing past relationships, and improving not just how you feel but how you are able to manifest in the world.

Q: I am dealing with anxiety and isolation.

Part of the work of therapy is forming a healing trusting relationship in an interpersonal way. As children we (ideally) begin life by being held, feeling safe with our caregivers, who regulate our emotional experiences, as we slowly learn to separate and be able to okay with our emotions, and feel secure in ourselves. In a therapy relationship, we collaborate to support you to learn ways to be with the feelings driving your anxiety so that you can regulate yourself. Finding support for yourself through learning to show your true self in relationship, allows you to be more confident in the world. This results in a feeling of security within oneself that leads to greater ease and freedom in your life. I have found that clients that video therapy is successful in supporting clients in significantly reducing anxiety and developing emotional resiliency. So relevant in our current COVID world, in which we must learn to manage the emotions and anxiety of separateness.

Q: What about if it keeps me too distant? Or not close enough?

Human relationships are stories of connection, and disconnection. Navigating connection and disconnection is one of the tasks of therapy. So often, when there is trauma, especially in childhood, one can be left with feelings of either craving connection or the fear of connection.

Through the attuned field of attention we build together, those patterns of difficulty in connection — such tendency to isolate become overly disconnected, to suffer with the intense yearning for connection, or to waffle in our feelings about connection — will show up as we work together. This is valuable so we can explore it together.

Q: Can I meet you for telehealth if I am not local? A: Depends where you live

When doing telehealth, therapy sessions are based on the state from which you make an online call. As a California licensed therapist, if you are a California resident, I am able to meet with you online when you are anywhere in California.

Due to the convenience and safety for clients, I continue to offer online psychotherapy services.

Thus, I am also accepting clients for telehealth from Southern California.

During COVID, many other states have waived expanded the ability of clients from other states to see out-of-state therapists. If you are interested in working with me related to my specialities of anxiety and somatic symptoms, or in need of a culturally sensitive therapist, please be aware that this may depend on your states laws.

Q: What do you use for telehealth. A: I use HIPAA compliant telehealth programs made for psychotherapists.

The programs I use comply with HIPAA security standards. While HIPAA laws are waived for telehealth during COVID, most of my clients are most comfortable knowing that we are working on a system that provides the legal standard of security.