Are You Looking for Resolution to Problematic Lifelong Predictable and Habitual Behaviors?
Do you sometimes find yourself making similar decisions resulting in similar outcomes with consequences you wish you could escape but seem to keep following you?
Do people or situations cause you intense internal distress that negatively affect your life?
Do you wonder why you keep reacting the same unhelpful way to similar types of people or situations?
Do you sometimes think about ending your life over things that later on don’t feel like such a big deal?
Do you think that you should let things go but still feel like there is a hook in your gut that you just cannot let go of?
Do you find yourself feeling shameful about yourself because you think you should be reacting to events differently but can’t even figure out how to do so?
Do you feel like a fraud at work, at home, or socially?
Do you feel emotions so intensely that you wish you could jump out of your own skin?
Have you been to therapy for years and still not figured “it” out yet?
Do you feel like in order to be accepted by yourself or others you have to pretend to be someone other than you?
Do you find yourself faking who you are in order to feel loved by others?
Do you feel like no matter what you do you are not good enough in the eyes of others?
Do you get easily swept up in relationships only to destroy them?
Do you feel like others should change who and how they are so you can feel at peace with yourself?
Do you feel like you are on stage in your life pretending to be a character who really is not you?
Do you feel urges to cling to others only to repel them later on?
Do you feel destructive in your life without knowing why?
Do you notice that the older you get the more difficult you find it to cope with life’s challenges?
Does anger or rage control you at times as if you cannot regain control?
Do you avoid meeting or being around people for fear that they will judge you harshly?
Do you feel jealous of others who appear to have it all while it feels like you do not?
Do you feel like you’ve been confined in a box your whole life and desperately want to get out?
Does it feel like you are an object to be used by others, as if that’s your only value in the world?
Do you identify with any of the scenarios above? If so, let’s talk.
Psychotherapy isn’t about becoming someone you are not. It’s about becoming your Real Self for once.
“Many people are caught in a knot of self-destructive behavior and are unable to see it or appreciate how they themselves have tied it. Each believes the problems lie somewhere “out there,” surrounding them but beyond them, rooted in external circumstances. They also believe that the solutions to their problems are “out there” too—the right man, the perfect woman, a more appreciative boss, a more interesting job, the right diet.”
― James F. Masterson, M.D.
I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist located in the California and Idaho.
I primarily use the Internal Family Systems (IFS) approach that helps clients get to know parts of themselves that are often at conflict with one another and the external world. The parts of all people’s internal systems are the Self (your authentic, unique self regardless of external influences), two types of Protectors (Managers, which proactively attempt to prevent psychological injury, and Firefighters, which reactively respond to inevitable psychological injury), and Exiles, which are parts of yourself you somehow learned needed to be hidden away from yourself and the world.
Your Protector parts are enlisted to protect your Exile parts at all costs. These parts become discombobulated typically early in life while being overwhelmed by people or situations that disrupt the Self from developing as it normally would. Protectors develop to protect injured Exiles from further injury where the Self became insufficient by overwhelm and from then on the Protectors run the show, rather than the Self. Protectors tend to be younger parts of us that stand guard long after trauma or overwhelming situations persist.
Allowing a seven year old part of you to operate your adult life on your behalf would not go well. Your journey is to discover all of your parts, their motives, their conflicts with other parts, their needs and wants, and then show those parts that your Self is an adult and can manage your life now while giving all of your parts what they need. This process of unblending provides definition between your real Self and other parts to allow your Self to reassemble your system in a much healthier, more functional, and effective way. This brings you calm, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, courage, creativity, and connectedness - the 8 Cs of IFS. This intuitive process works for men and women and has been the most effective form of psychotherapy I have seen in my life.
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
