philosophy of therapy

I believe there are two primary issues involved in bringing about healthy, lasting change. These are personal responsibility and relationships.

I fundamentally believe in personal responsibility as the core component involved in change. No matter what choices we face in life—to risk, to trust, to reach out, to take action, to try again—at the end of the day, the choice belongs to us. Many of us are reactive—we act out of emotion or without really slowing down to think...and we often regret the results. Some of us don’t believe we have what it takes to make good choices—we feel like victims, paralyzed, incapable, as if we can’t really trust our intuition and judgment. Sometimes we feel like we have no good choices available-–and sometimes that’s true—but we still must make a choice. Most often, we feel determined by others whose influence or presence makes it difficult or impossible to choose freely. All of these are conundrums that must be solved if we want to experience peace, harmony, and contentment with ourselves and in our relationships. In therapy, we solve them by looking within to figure out what is going on at key moments—we learn to slow down and discover the internal factors that influence our choices, and put them together in new ways that allow us to feel good about our choices and behaviors.

I fundamentally believe that relationships have the potential to provide us with joy, meaning, and healing, on the one hand, or pain, despair, and distress on the other. Advances in neuroscience have taught us that human development—social, emotional, moral, and physical—are heavily influenced by our childhood attachments to caregivers AND our current relationships with romantic partners, family, and friends. In order for us to be healthy and resilient, it is vital that we have connections to others that are characterized by safety, caring, understanding, respect, and conflict-resolution. Even when we know that others love us, if our connection with them lacks these key features, we will suffer greatly. In fact many individual problems such as depression, anxiety, anger, and hopelessness actually come from relationship that lack these features. The good news is that relationship can be improved because healthy relationship skills can be learned—even if you’ve never had experience with good relationships. I work with couples and families to make sense out of conflict and find the areas where the connection falls apart—where barriers to resolution occur. By slowing things down, we are able to figure out what is going on with each person and see how each person is affecting the other—for good or hurt. Once this is accomplished, it is possible to introduce new skills that can break old patterns of disconnection and heal old injuries. This leads to a better connection, restored trust, improved communication, respect, and joy. When this is achieved, your relationship will be a source of comfort instead of a source of distress.

You can reach NGCS...

by phone: 760-494-4394—sorry, no text messages

by mail: PO Box 2700, Carlsbad, CA, 92018.

by fax: 760-494-4395

by email: info@NewGrowthCounseling.com

Office: do not send mail here: 2850 Pio Pico Dr., Suite K

2nd floor—Carlsbad, CA 92008