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Our earliest relationships with our parents or caregivers influence who we are and how we interact with others for the rest of our lives. Connecting with our parents is as instinctual and fundamental as our need to eat and sleep. This connection or attachment to our parents allows us to develop our sense of our selves and shapes our personalities. How we get our needs met by our parents as children affects how we see and experience others and the world around us.
When we are not satisfied with our relationships or our lives in general as adults it is possible to examine these early relationships to determine how we learned to relate to others. The therapeutic relationship is the perfect context to determine what we need to change to make work, friendships, and family life richer and more satisfying.
In therapy, I help individuals understand how they interact with others can interfere with having healthier, more rewarding relationships and personal lives. In their work with me clients will:
gain a better understanding of themselves and their needs
learn more effective communication skills
create more satisfying work, friend, and family relationships
Sometimes our early attachment to our caregivers is not as positive or productive as it could have been. There are many reasons for this, such as maternal depression, ineffective or poor parenting (e.g., physical or emotional abuse, alcoholism or other substance abuse), medical traumas (e.g., childhood hospitalizations) or economic hardships, to name just a few.
Because the brain develops through interpersonal interaction, a problematic attachment can affect how we perceive and experience the environment around us. In many cases, however, trying to resolve these issues through traditional “talk” therapy is ineffective because it cannot access the parts of the brain that contain the distressing experiences.
Fortunately, there is a technique, Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR), which does access these parts of the brain and allows us to work with these experiences. EMDR is also very useful for resolving traumas resulting from car accidents and violent crime. I have trained in this technique and used it successfully with individuals as well as couples.
For more information about EMDR, please visit: www.emdr.com.
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