During the interim, I've decided to go ahead and create this page with my initial views of the counseling process, how I view the human condition generally, and how I approach the process of change with a person who comes to me for help. As you can see elsewhere on this site, I'm trained as a Feldenkrais practitioner, have an undergraduate degree in visual arts, have spent 25 years (and counting!) in the world of dance, and am a Buddhist practitioner. So there are many worlds and many bodies of information that come together to create who I am and, subsequently, what I do.

For example: one part of us likes to be in a relationship. Another part of us is terrified of losing our freedom and our identity in a relationship. Do these two aspects of ourselves talk to each other or are they continually fighting one another?

Or, let's say that one part of us wants to open up to people, be more interactive and friendly and make more friends. Another part of us says, "No, people will hurt you. You shouldn't do that. That's not safe." Again, are we in dialogue with ourselves in a healthy way, or are we living a life that is split into little pieces like a cracked mirror?

Counseling is an opportunity to bring out the different aspects of ourselves in a safe place and create dialogues and expressions that can allow us to recognize and embrace the totality of who we are in a healthier way. As we get used to living this way, we tend to do the same with others.

Sometimes we have feelings that don't have words; one way to access the words (if we want words) is to explore the domain of the feelings first. Do we feel heavy? Rigid? Stuck? Or for that matter, invisible, insubstantial? Ungrounded? Floating? Are we aware of taking up space? How big or small do we feel in life? Does that feeling reflect the reality of our presence in space? These are all valid domains for coming to understand who we are and how we feel around others.

I've long felt that one of the disadvantages of traditional talk therapy is that it heavily favors people who are facile with words and verbal expression. There are other ways that human beings can express what they want understood: art, movement, where they stand in a room, how they hold their body. All of these are doorways that can be entered in a therapeutic process to help a person find and reclaim lost or split off parts of him/herself.