The impact of recent fires in our area

On January 7 and 8, devastating fires swept through Altadena, a community less than six miles from my office. Many individuals and families lost homes and businesses, and many more had to evacuate to save themselves from the fast-moving inferno. This was a collective trauma that we are all adjusting to, and will be recovering from for perhaps a long time. If you have suffered trauma resulting in anxiousness throughout your day, I specialize in treating this problem. I utilize evidence-based interventions that you can easily learn in order to manage fears and worries. I also provide a strong brain- and body-science perspective to help you learn about what anxiety is, and why we experience it. This kind of “demystification” increases the effectiveness of the body-mind interventions.

“Asking for help is not giving up… It’s refusing to give up.” — Charlie Mackesy

My work

Since 2004, I have specialized in Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy. This process, whether used alone, or supplemented by my other specialties, such as cognitive-behaviorial or trauma-informed psychotherapy, helps us to cultivate a new relationship to difficult situations in daily life. My motto is, "If you can't change the situation, change your relationship to the situation," and my treatment style is interactive, client-centered, and solution-focused in order to achieve this goal.

A primary component of my work involves trauma-informed neuroscience. In trauma-informed neuroscience, we are acknowledging that something is triggering us in the present moment causing emotional dysregulation. This triggering is usually related to a similar past experience which caused us emotional distress (usually fear). During the triggering event, the body is now moblized to protect us from that fearful experience by reverting to behaviors related to either the “fight-or-flight” or “freeze-or-fold” reactions. Much of my work with clients involves teaching easy-to-learn techniques for returning to a place of calmness and safety.

For treatment of anxiety, I first begin by helping patients understand the nature of anxiety: why we have it and what it does. Then we move into the management phase of anxiety, which includes various cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) elements, seeing the situation more clearly through mindful awareness, and simple breathing interventions. Research into these forms of treatment have indicated that they can be effective for treating anxiety. Finally, we engage in a process I call “Manual Override” in which our intelligent and rational parts of the brain communicate with intelligent and irrational sympathetic nervous system (the “fight, flight, freeze, or fold” mechanism). By doing so, we can override the automatic and habitual pathways of reaction that often cause anxiousness.

Areas of Practice

Adults, Adolescents, Couples

Anxiety, Depression, Trauma and Traumatic Re-Experiencing, Anger Managment, Relationship Communication, Addictive Behaviors

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for managing difficult mood states (more information about MBCT here)

Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) for addictive behaviors (more information about MBRP here)