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There are many ways to deal with a wall that blocks your path: Climb over it, go around it, stop and retreat, stop and contemplate your situation, consider living with the wall, dismantle the wall, seek to understand why you may have chosen a path that has a wall blocking it, and more.
The art of therapy is in matching the right approach for the right person at the right time. If, after using all the approaches in which you are trained to treat you find your client still not responding, or responding very slowly, you might wish to explore some new interventions.
I have been exploring a broad range of therapeutic approaches for thirty years.
These include:
Psychodynamic psychotherapy
Dream analysis
Behavioral therapy
Contracting
Sweetening spirals
Transactional Analysis
Gestalt therapy
Paradoxical interventions
Relaxation
Meditation
Imagery
Stress management
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI)
Meridian Based Therapies - WHEE; Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Conventional medical practice
Psychiatry
Wholistic approaches
Complementary/ Alternative Medicine (CAM)
Integrative care
Spiritual awareness
Healing
Intuitive awareness
Individuals (Adults, adolescents, children)
Couples
Families
Groups
Creativity
Joy!
Consultations to psychotherapists and CAM practitioners
I am available to discuss difficult problems and to explore with therapists and/ or clients new ways to view and address psychological issues and therapies.
I can often suggest new ways of understanding problems and innovative approaches to dealing with them.
Consultations can be in a single visit or as ongoing supervision.
Telephone consultations may be convenient.
WHEE, Meditation, imagery, and other easily learned approaches not only reduce stress, they enhance intuition, creativity, and problem-solving abilities. They are enjoyable and productive.
These methods also open into spiritual awareness.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy
Talking therapy is the backbone of psychotherapy. Issues of acceptance vs confrontation, support vs. encouraging independence, transference, and countertransference may need clarification, adjustment.
Dream analysis
Dreams open into the depths of the unconscious mind and suggest new ways of understanding and dealing with problems.
Dreams may open into creative, intuitive, and spiritual awarenesses.
Behavioral therapy
Behavior therapy can address habits that developed earlier in life, often in childhood. By analyzing patterns of behavior it is possible to develop systematic approaches to changing behaviors.
This can be helpful in dealing with eating, smoking, and other habits.
Contracting
Working systematically on problems between couples, or between parents and children, it is possible to develop agreements that are mutually acceptable and satisfying.
Sweetening spirals
It is a sad commentary on our society that we don't even have a term for the opposite of a vicious circle. Therapy often focuses primarily on traumas, pains, and fears.
I help build up positive aspects of life as well as sorting out the negative ones. Therapy can help to find joy and peace in life, as well as sorting out problems.
My goal is to create sweetening spirals to replace the vicious circles.
Dealing with pain and emotional problems need not be prolonged. I use the latest methods combined with time-honored techniques to facilitate growth and progress in healing.
Transactional Analysis (TA)
Developed originally by Eric Berne, TA explores the inner voices that are often in conflict within us and between ourselves and other people.
The child wants pleasure and immediate gratification, acceptance and love. It does not want to be told what to do or when to do it.
The adult is like a computer, examining everything logically to see what makes sense and what appears to be worth while pursuing.
The parent reminds us of all the "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" that we internalized from our parents, teachers, religion, and society.
TA offers immediate alternatives to patterns of reaction and behaviors that are unsatisfying or get us into trouble.
Gestalt therapy
Gestalt therapy helps to sort out the inner voices that may be confused or in conflict. Through a process of dialoguing with ourselves, we can clarify what is going on inside ourselves and take responsibility for making better choices.
Gestalt therapy works well with TA.
Example: George, a sales clerk, found himself arguing often with his manager over trivial matters. The manager seemed much more irritable with George than with the other sales clerks on the floor. By having George speak the role of his manage from one chair and respond as himself from another chair, it became clear that George's attitude and tone of voice were often rebellious. This stimulated his manager to be critical.
By changing his tone, George learned to make himself heard in a way that brought him understanding rather than criticism. George was surprised to find that his wife and children also began to relate to him more pleasantly, as he carried home some of his lessons from work.
Paradoxical interventions
There are people who are defiant rather than compliant. They are so fiercely independent that they will say "No!" to almost any question or request. They are often in conflict with their families, friends, fellow-workers, and employers.
Paradoxical interventions are a form of mental judo that allow a therapist to intervene with defiant clients in ways that bring about rapid changes.
Example: 13 year-old Jimmie was brought by his parents at the insistance of his school because he was constantly arguing and fighting with other children, talking back to teachers, and grossly under-achieving in his academic work. At home he was rebellious, arguing all the time, and refusing to help.
His parents reported that nothing they did seemed to have any effect, but from interactions during the interview, it appeared that they were not firm or consistent in their parenting roles. Every suggestion I made was countered by, "We've tried that and it doesn't work." or "He won't listen, so it's no use even doing something like that."
When it was revealed that he still slept in his parents' bed, I labeled his behaviors as "very young for his age." Seeing that both he and his parents were defiant, I wondered out loud why his parents might need to keep him so young as to still have him sleeping in their bed, and speculated that they must not know how to let him grow up. I warned them that this was likely to be a long and difficult course of therapy, considering how serious the problems were, and cautioned him to not make any major or quick changes because his parents probably wouldn't know how to handle the situation if he started to grow up.
The next week, he came in announcing that he was no longer sleeping in his parents' bed and they reported marked improvements in his behavior.
Paradoxical interventions might seem to be provocative or even critical, but defiant people feel very accepted with these sorts of approaches.
Relaxation
We often get into a vicious circle of
stress --> anxiety --> emotional tension --> muscle tension --> body "up tight" with aches and pains, hypertension, stomach aches, etc. --> anxiety --> etc.
Relaxation can stop this vicious circle.
Meditation - Meditation can help in several ways.
relaxation
releasing worries
enhancing concentration
developing creativity
reaching into spiritual awareness
Imagery
Imagery allows us to address problems in new and creative ways. It can be a potent aid to exploring problems and developing innovative solutions to them.
Stress prevention and management
A comprehensive program for stress prevention and management can be developed by combining several of these approaches.
Psychoneuroimmunology
The mind can influence the immune system. When we are stressed our immune system is impaired and we are more liable to succumb to many types of disorders. A formal stress inventory can predict when we are so stressed that we are likely to fall ill. People who get serious illnesses such as cancer often have had very high stress levels, often with severe disappointments or emotional traumas, in the previous 24 months.
By practicing various exercises, it is possible to enhance immune system function.
Meridian Based Therapies
Certain pressure points on the body, when combined with an affirmation, can release fears, old emotional hurts, and self-doubts deeply, rapidly, and permanently. These include WHEE, Thought Field Therapy (TFT), Emotional Freedom Therapy (EFT), Tapas Acupressure Technique (TAT), and others.
These dramatically facilitate psychotherapy and can be practiced as self-healing. They are also highly effective in relieving pains and allergies.
Example: Sally was very bright and had graduated with high honors from university but was unable to land a good job because she panicked when interviewing. She had always had difficulty with public speaking. Medications made her drowsy and muddled her thinking. With one hour of meridian based therapy, Sally was cured permanently of her interview and public speaking anxieties.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR was developed by Francine Shapiro. EMDR is a potent therapy for releasing old emotional traumas, even when they are severe and long-standing. Originally EMDR relied on eye movements, but it has been found that touching the body or hearing sounds in particular patterns can produce the same effects.
Example: Donald, a 5 year-old boy was brought to me by his foster mother because he was having violent temper tantrums at home and and at school, was unable to fall asleep till midnight or later, woke frequently with nightmares, and regularly wet his bed. He had been neglected and emotionally, physically, and sexually abused by his biological mother, and had been transferred out of four previous foster placements because of his difficult behaviors.
With EMDR in the office, also practiced by Donald under the supervision of his foster mother at home, he was able to sleep normally, without nightmares, and stopped having temper tantrums over a period of four weeks.
Conventional medical practice
Psychiatry
Complementary/ Alternative Medicine (CAM)
Integrative care
Wholistic approaches
Spiritual awareness
Healing
Intuitive awareness
Individuals (Adults, adolescents, children)
Couples
Families
Groups
Creativity
Joy!
Wholistic approaches
Healing and self-healing by identifying and releasing blocks to wholeness in body, emotions, mind, relationships, and spirit.
Couples in growth
Sorting out problems that interfere in the full enjoyment of a special relationship
Discovering ways to relate more pleasurably and productively
Developing better communication within the family
Family Therapy
Changing unhappy or stressful relationships and patterns of communication between parents and children
Enhancing the quality of family life
Finding the best ways to support your children as they grow
and learn
Personal presentations
Telephone tutorials
Individual
Group Scheduling consultations with Dr. Benor
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