Therapeutic Approach

 

Tasha includes a number of modalities in her work including Family Systems Theory, Neuro -Linguistic Programming, Gestalt, Body Centered Therapies, Cognitive Therapy and a Psycho/spiritual orientation. A combination of these approaches as well as an exploration of your family history and how it may relate to your current situation will be looked at. We will examine in detail patterns in your life that you feel are not working for you and look at the beliefs that drive them, inviting new options. We can also explore your personal spiritual base as it relates to you and how you operate in your life.

Much of the work is experiential and while it can bring up strong feelings ultimately you are responsible for both the content and the pace of the work that is done. 
Suggestions will be made and homework assigned, yet it is very important that you always feel like you are the final arbitrator of deciding  what works for you.

You will always be supported to understand that you have the right to full and active participation in the decisions that affect you. The choice to proceed in a certain direction or to participate in an exercise will always remain with you. We will work at your pace.

Once we have developed a comfort with each other and you feel ready to go deeper we will begin to bring your current struggle into the room. Instead of simply discussing it we will creatively bring it into our present moment. The benefits of this approach are multifaceted.
While thoughts and beliefs may be what is keeping you from living to your fullest potential it is ultimately the expression, understanding and acceptance of your feelings that will generate the greatest change.

Feelings are accessed in the body, not in the mind so we will often focus on your breathing and invite your body as a dynamic information system into our exploration. 
There are many approaches we can take to invite both change and deeper awareness.
These include everything from talking and looking at repetitive patterns in your life and relationships to learning relaxation techniques to reduce stress, visualization, physical anger release and  re-wiring of the brain using Neuro Linguistic Programming exercises.
One of these exercises which combines an NLP and Gestalt approach is called Parts Work.


Couples

	Couples come for therapy when one or both partners are expressing distress or dissatisfaction in the relationship. The content of this distress can be anything from feeling a lack of intimacy, emotional closeness or physical desire to issues involving communication, affairs, the possibility of separation or divorce, parenting issues or lack of meaning and connection. My approach to working with couples invites both partners to express themselves authentically and identify their needs. We will work together to develop ways of communication that helps resolve conflict and bring awareness and closeness to the couples relationship.

My approach to working with couples invites both partners to express themselves authentically and identify their needs. We will work together to develop ways of communication that helps resolve conflict and bring awareness and closeness to the couples relationship. We will look at triggers in the couples dynamic that may be rooted in early family of origin dynamics and generate healthier interaction in the present relationship.

The relationship will be viewed as the container in which both people can reach their fullest potential through overcoming relationship hurdles. 
If you want to make your relationship more passionate and loving, more fully alive….this approach will inspire authenticity and closeness as well as the freedom to be yourselves.

Recommended reading:   Passionate Marriage by David Schnarch PhD

Parts Work

When you are ready and if appropriate for your particular situation you will be supported to step into a kinesthetic awareness of four basic parts of the personality, the child, the victim, the adolescent and the critic.
These parts of the psyche, distinct energies with recognizable characteristics and unique perceptions  may be buried from your awareness yet they are important to know as a means to develop a healthy and functioning  personality.  

If you place your attention inside and focus on what you are saying to yourself, inside yourself,  you may notice that while one part of you thinks one thing, another part thinks something completely different.  These parts may have totally opposite perspectives, desires and challenges. 

We will make this internal chatter conscious in our work together and simplify it, allowing you to enter into a relationship with these aspects of yourself with the intention to grow them up by meeting their needs.
Then instead of denying or battling with these inner voices, you can integrate them. By doing so you free yourself to accomplish your goals, to accept and be proud of yourself and to feel inner wholeness and peace.

There is a part of you that is different than all the fragmented young parts of your psyche.
It is this part that I refer to as Core Self or True Self that we will endeavor to anchor that resourceful part of you as the driver of your life and choices.
You will define what this place is in you and what you wish to call it.
The Transpersonal aspect of this work involves accessing this part of you. The word transpersonal simply means beyond the personality, beyond the personal. 
I believe and have witnessed that everyone has a part of themselves that is unconditionally loving, free of fear, entirely resourceful and wise. A part that is universal.

When you are guided by this part of you, when you identify yourself as this part, already whole and loving then  your behavior tends to be in alignment with your  goals and matches your personal value system. If however one of the basic parts formed in childhood, the child, the victim, the adolescent and the critic are in charge or identified as who you are then ones inner state is often experienced as full of conflict and upsetting. 

You may act out of these parts with behaviors that you yourself find unacceptable and undesirable and result in problems in your life. This is because while you may experience these parts they are not the whole of you. They are aspects of your psyche that were arrested from developing fully as in the case of the child.
Clearly you are no longer a child and yet there may be many childlike beliefs, desires and perceptions that rule your life as an adult.

Together we will learn what the positive intention is behind these parts, grow them up and once integrated utilize their inherent resources. They all hold gifts for you that would be of benefit. For instance the child part of ourselves holds gifts of playfulness. and unlimited possibility. 
The goal of Parts Work is to broaden the understanding of what is actually going on inside one’s thought system and then integrate all the fragments of self. in order to feel whole.

Spirituality

You will answer the question for yourself as to whether you are a human being with occasional glimpses of your spiritual essence or in fact the exact opposite, you are a spiritual essence that is having a human experience.
I will help you have a direct experience of your true essence so you can make an authentic choice not just a leap of faith. And if you decide based on your experience that your true nature is loving and can guide your life you naturally feel freer to invite all the other parts of yourself that are not loving into awareness.
You can have an experience of all your parts and know you are NOT your parts. You can feel all your feelings and know you are NOT your feelings. You can experience all your thoughts and know you are NOT your thoughts. 

When you decide who you really are and take guidance for your choices from that solid part of you, your behavior will reflect that and match your goals, values  and desires.
You will experience yourself as free and authentic through this enlightening journey of exploration and empowerment and most importantly your self acceptance will translate into living your life with purpose and integrity.