To
heal means to come back to wholeness. Each of us is born with an innate wisdom
that guides us toward reclaiming that wholeness. A solid connection with the
right therapist can give you the strength you need to heal your life.Life
experiences often disrupt our sense of wholeness, leaving us feeling unable to
find our way back to ourselves. When this happens, our lives and our
relationships can become difficult, or even unbearable.I view my work as one
of helping you to reunite with that innate wisdom, so you can experience more
of the love, connection and happiness that is your birthright.
Together we will
develop a deep knowing of who you are and what you stand for. Working together,
either online or in person, I can help you identify and shift patterns that are
blocking you from fully accessing your personal power, saying yes to happiness
in your life and creating relationships that are nurturing, close and
satisfying. I am committed to helping you identify and work towards creating
the life you want and deserve.
What differentiates one therapist from
the next?
Listening:
Listening well is one of my strengths. I want to hear from you. I
want to understand where you are coming from. And then I want to give back to
you what I hear you saying, perhaps at a deeper level, so we can look at
it together. Our work together is about gaining clarity about you.
With clarity comes insight, and with insight, often comes movement, growth,
transformation.
Support:
I have a collaborative approach to doing therapy. You (or your family)
and I are a team. I am a powerful ally for you to have on your
team. I will help you be the best one of you you can be. I will
psychically cheer you on, and support your dreams, and tell you the truth when
you need to hear it.
Compassion:
I have this radical view about human beings. I believe, given who we are,
our personal history, how we’ve been hurt in this world, that each of us is
doing the very best we can at every given moment in time. (Otherwise we would
be doing better.) If we’re not doing very well, it’s because for whatever
reason, that is the best we can do right then. I’m certain that if
we could do better, we would do better. This is my bottom-line
working assumption about folks, because I have learned that if you let people
have this, if you give people the benefit of the doubt, you very quickly begin
the process of healing. What a relief it is to start from here.
This attitude gives people a hand--it helps them to climb out of whatever dark
or self-hating place they may find themselves in.
Respect:
We have all been put down, criticized, judged, and worse, humiliated,
disrespected, and hurt in so many ways. That we’re doing as well as we
are is a testament to our resiliency, or some kind of miracle really! But
if only the people that mattered had treated us with just a little modicum of
respect, we might be doing so much better than we are. Because what
happens to human beings is that when we’re told over and over again, for
instance, that we’re no good, or not good enough, we internalize that message
and begin to believe that it’s true about us. Part of my work is helping
people separate out what’s really true about them.
The therapeutic relationship is like no other. I view the relationship between the client and the
therapist as one of the most essential elements in the healing process. The
client, in a sense, gets to borrow the strengths of the therapist, until they
learn to internalize those strengths for their own. Having someone in
your life who will not judge you, who cares about you, believes in your
essential goodness and thinks well about you is an amazing gift. We don’t need
to be distressed to really benefit from this kind of relationship.
There’s always room to grow, find greater success, and become more connected to
ourselves and to the people we love. The therapeutic relationship can
teach people how to better do this in their own lives.
Ilene English Reaches
Sebastopol CA