My Therapeutic Approach
As a therapist and academic, I have focused on understanding the impact of childhood trauma on our social and emotional development. This led me to more generally understanding personality development, particularly through the lens of our relationship with our selves, including self-esteem and self-confidence. Through this exploration and understanding, I now know that our relationship with ourselves is the foundation of all other relationships and experiences. That said, trauma, especially in childhood when we're most vulnerable, is the mechanism by which we lose ourselves, resulting in many, if not all, of the social, emotional, and psychological issues people deal with.
What is Trauma?
I understand trauma to be anything that communicated to us that we were not safe being who we naturally were. Now safety is a relative term, meaning our brains do not differentiate between social safety and physical safety. In other words, someone who made us feel stupid, ashamed, or embarrassed can feel to the brain like we're going to die, especially in childhood. As children, we are dependent on others for survival. We have not yet developed the ability to provide for ourselves or had enough life experience to be able to adequately understand the complexity of social interactions. Children, especially younger than age 7, think concretely and see things at face value. They do not understand intentions or other abstract concepts. Their point of view is that everything revolves around them and is about them. This is when we're most likely to take things personally, meaning if trauma happens to us during this period, we believe that there was something about us that caused it. Because of this, we adapt and try to prevent that experience from happening again.
Protective Mechanisms
When trauma happens, or when we feel unsafe for whatever reason, we protect ourselves. Psychologically, these protective mechanisms change how we show up in the world. I'll give you an example. My oldest daughter is 7 as I'm writing this. Before this age, she was impulsive and messy. She would have a great idea and then had to execute it right away with everything she had. She would take out all of her things and the mess would overwhelm me. I would be upset and she didn't like that. She is now more aware of herself and our expectations as parents. She is organized and thoughtful and much more obedient now. But at what cost? Knowing what I know now, I wonder what parts of herself she has suppressed or hidden away, given our influence as parents and authority figures, just so that she can feel safe and accepted, to be "good" and not get in trouble. While her changes definitely make my life easier, I worry she has lost pieces of her essence that felt unsafe to be seen because of our reactions and disapproval. While this is a socially accepted change in her personality, it can still have ramifications on her sense of self and her sense of security in being fully herself in the world.
As a therapist, I find that most of what people are struggling with - their uncertainty or displeasure with life, failed relationships, trouble making decisions, being stuck in patterns - are due to their loss of self. They are operating on protective mechanisms that no longer serve them. Worse yet, these protective mechanisms are keeping them in the very dynamics they needed protection from in the first place. In other words, while we developed our protective mechanisms for valid reasons and those protective mechanisms were helpful in those contexts, they are now sabotaging and hurting us. We need help shedding them and returning to our true self. When we are our true self, we feel centered, grounded, and secure. We have the ability to know whats a yes for us and what is a no. We can feel the need to set boundaries and let things go.
Our True Self: Introduction to Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS)
The concept of a true self is born out of my research on personality development and through learning the Enneagram. What I have discovered is that most, if not all of us, get separated from our true self, mostly in childhood. The primary therapy I practice is called Internal Family Systems Therapy, or IFS. This is an evidence-based therapy that understands humans as having a complex and adaptive psyche. In IFS terms, we are a Self born with parts of our personality. Our Self is our core Being and our parts are the aspects of us that can take on burdens or traumas. When our parts take on a burden or trauma, they shift into protection mode and develop protective mechanisms. They hide their former characteristics and ways of being, our natural personality, and now show up (or hide) in an adaptive, protective way, causing us to lose access to who we really are. Losing this access is a large source of our suffering.
As a CounSouler, I conceptualize the human psyche in terms of Ego and Soul. Connecting that to IFS language, Soul is the Self and our unburdened parts. When our parts become burdened, they not only develop protective mechanisms, but they also eclipse the Self, or our core Being, our Essence, our connection to our Higher Self and the Universe. This is when our Ego takes over. I understand the Ego as a collection of burdened parts. Sigmund Freud identified the Ego as the mediator between the Id, our instinctual drives, and the Super Ego, societal influences and expectations. In terms of IFS, the Ego emerges as parts get burdened to help us moderate our natural impulses and ways of being to better suit those around us and the culture we find ourselves in. This causes us to become Ego-led, rather than Self-led. This shifts our focus from our true selves to the external world. Richard Schwartz, the founder of IFS, has a wonderful audio book called Greater than the Sum of Our Parts, and it's so true. We are not our burdened parts, but as we become adults it begins to feel like we are. CounSouling is here to show you that you are so much more!
CounSouling
My CounSouling approach expands IFS into a spiritual form of therapy, where I believe IFS was meant to be all along. It incorporates spiritual assessments to help guide the therapeutic process. Like conventional therapy that uses clinical assessments to understand levels or severity of depression, anxiety, and trauma, I use assessments to understand your unique energy and qualities as a spiritual Being in human form. These spiritual assessments can identify which of your parts have become burdened and where you can focus your efforts to return to your True Self. The assessments I use include the Enneagram, which describes your Ego structure, Numerology, which identifies the energies of your birth date and name, and Human Design, which reveals your unique energy system based on your date, time, and place of birth. The process of engaging with these assessments brings out your parts and reminds them of who they truly are and how they would much rather show up for you. I find that they serve as a great way to engage your parts and begin IFS.
In addition to IFS, I use another evidence-based therapy called EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and a variety of visualization techniques. EMDR stimulates the brain, helping desensitize traumatic memories, reprocess life experiences to gain new perspectives, and enhance outcomes. Visualization helps the brain try-on and acquaint itself with new possibilities. Seeing is believing. The assessments I use can help guide us towards what needs desensitization, reprocessing, and visualization for your transformation. Ultimately, the goal is to reunite Ego with Soul and have them operate collaboratively for you, supporting and guiding you through life.
My Journey with CounSouling
To give an example of this approach, I'll share a part of my own journey through CounSouling. My Enneagram type 3 gave me insight that my Ego protects my image and hides my flaws by pushing me to achieve more and be competitive. It also keeps me working hard to avoid feeling worthless. My Numerology revealed that my personality number is a 13/4, the number of a hard worker, but that its driven by my desire to be an authority on something (my Soul Urge number 8). My Human Design identified that my energy type is a Manifesting Generator, meaning my energy is best spent when I am following my passions. Together, I could see how my parts that made up my Enneagram type 3 were burdened by performing for others to feel worthy of their attention and admiration and that I had lost connection to my inner passions. I didn't need to stop being a hard worker, but I needed to work hard for me and my passions, not to please or impress someone else. I first did EMDR to work on one of my part's burdens of "I'm not good enough", which came from memories in school as a 2nd grader. Next I did IFS to connect with Cynthia, my part that helps me be a good student and apply what I am learning correctly and in an innovative way that impresses others. My work with Cynthia helped her realize she doesn't need to protect me from feeling not good enough anymore. She was able to see I am not in 2nd grade any more or struggling to keep up with my peers. We had made it! This allowed her to return to her naturally contributive state of enjoying learning and helping me pursue my interests for my own enjoyment. This process relieved me of the belief that I'm not good enough and redirected my focus to myself and what I want. I got so much out of this! I now feel less anxious and have so much more joy in life. I enjoy learning new things and sharing them with people who are interested. I'm not trying to impress anyone, I'm just having fun! This is how CounSouling was born!
Grow Through What You Go Through
Many of the people I have discussed my work with have asked me if it is possible to raise children without burdening their parts and separating their true Self from their awareness. This goal is what I call unadulteration, or keeping our children from being adulterated - influenced by adults. At this time in our society, I don't think it is possible, AND I wonder if it is actually helpful to have this lost and found process as Souls. It reminds me of Souls leaving Source/God-dess/The Universe/Creation and incarnating, and babies leaving their mother's womb. We have these separations for a reason, they play a role in our development. My studies of the Soul's purpose and journey, through a variety of sources, shows that Souls incarnate to have experiences and evolve, that we are an extension of Creation - Creation is experiencing Creation through us. We are our biological parent's creation and we create through our passions, work, and relationships. Losing and reclaiming ourselves through separation is much more rewarding than never having lost ourselves to begin with. We gain a lot in the process - if we let ourselves.
I encourage people to grow through what they go through. Let the events in your life shed light on the parts of you that need healing. Heal those parts and grow. Every moment of life is an opportunity to see yourself more clearly. Your experience of the world around you is a reflection of your internal world. Pay attention and take responsibility for yourself. Do your work, as you are the only one who can. Also know that others have to do their work, you can't do it for them. Stay focused on you and your journey.
The work I do with CounSouling is empowering. We explore what has happened (the past) in a curious way and then look at the result (the present) from a place of understanding and acceptance. Next we work with what is to create your next, which I find to be so fun and exciting, full of possibility! The process is rewarding. You get to know yourself on such a deep and meaningful level that you fall in love with you, the real You! This love allows you to commit to yourself and support yourself in ways you would not before. You'll allow yourself to have boundaries, prioritize your needs, and pursue your goals and dreams. At the same time, you'll be able to be more authentically engaged in relationships and able to help others along their journey just by being you!
What is Trauma?
I understand trauma to be anything that communicated to us that we were not safe being who we naturally were. Now safety is a relative term, meaning our brains do not differentiate between social safety and physical safety. In other words, someone who made us feel stupid, ashamed, or embarrassed can feel to the brain like we're going to die, especially in childhood. As children, we are dependent on others for survival. We have not yet developed the ability to provide for ourselves or had enough life experience to be able to adequately understand the complexity of social interactions. Children, especially younger than age 7, think concretely and see things at face value. They do not understand intentions or other abstract concepts. Their point of view is that everything revolves around them and is about them. This is when we're most likely to take things personally, meaning if trauma happens to us during this period, we believe that there was something about us that caused it. Because of this, we adapt and try to prevent that experience from happening again.
Protective Mechanisms
When trauma happens, or when we feel unsafe for whatever reason, we protect ourselves. Psychologically, these protective mechanisms change how we show up in the world. I'll give you an example. My oldest daughter is 7 as I'm writing this. Before this age, she was impulsive and messy. She would have a great idea and then had to execute it right away with everything she had. She would take out all of her things and the mess would overwhelm me. I would be upset and she didn't like that. She is now more aware of herself and our expectations as parents. She is organized and thoughtful and much more obedient now. But at what cost? Knowing what I know now, I wonder what parts of herself she has suppressed or hidden away, given our influence as parents and authority figures, just so that she can feel safe and accepted, to be "good" and not get in trouble. While her changes definitely make my life easier, I worry she has lost pieces of her essence that felt unsafe to be seen because of our reactions and disapproval. While this is a socially accepted change in her personality, it can still have ramifications on her sense of self and her sense of security in being fully herself in the world.
As a therapist, I find that most of what people are struggling with - their uncertainty or displeasure with life, failed relationships, trouble making decisions, being stuck in patterns - are due to their loss of self. They are operating on protective mechanisms that no longer serve them. Worse yet, these protective mechanisms are keeping them in the very dynamics they needed protection from in the first place. In other words, while we developed our protective mechanisms for valid reasons and those protective mechanisms were helpful in those contexts, they are now sabotaging and hurting us. We need help shedding them and returning to our true self. When we are our true self, we feel centered, grounded, and secure. We have the ability to know whats a yes for us and what is a no. We can feel the need to set boundaries and let things go.
Our True Self: Introduction to Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS)
The concept of a true self is born out of my research on personality development and through learning the Enneagram. What I have discovered is that most, if not all of us, get separated from our true self, mostly in childhood. The primary therapy I practice is called Internal Family Systems Therapy, or IFS. This is an evidence-based therapy that understands humans as having a complex and adaptive psyche. In IFS terms, we are a Self born with parts of our personality. Our Self is our core Being and our parts are the aspects of us that can take on burdens or traumas. When our parts take on a burden or trauma, they shift into protection mode and develop protective mechanisms. They hide their former characteristics and ways of being, our natural personality, and now show up (or hide) in an adaptive, protective way, causing us to lose access to who we really are. Losing this access is a large source of our suffering.
As a CounSouler, I conceptualize the human psyche in terms of Ego and Soul. Connecting that to IFS language, Soul is the Self and our unburdened parts. When our parts become burdened, they not only develop protective mechanisms, but they also eclipse the Self, or our core Being, our Essence, our connection to our Higher Self and the Universe. This is when our Ego takes over. I understand the Ego as a collection of burdened parts. Sigmund Freud identified the Ego as the mediator between the Id, our instinctual drives, and the Super Ego, societal influences and expectations. In terms of IFS, the Ego emerges as parts get burdened to help us moderate our natural impulses and ways of being to better suit those around us and the culture we find ourselves in. This causes us to become Ego-led, rather than Self-led. This shifts our focus from our true selves to the external world. Richard Schwartz, the founder of IFS, has a wonderful audio book called Greater than the Sum of Our Parts, and it's so true. We are not our burdened parts, but as we become adults it begins to feel like we are. CounSouling is here to show you that you are so much more!
CounSouling
My CounSouling approach expands IFS into a spiritual form of therapy, where I believe IFS was meant to be all along. It incorporates spiritual assessments to help guide the therapeutic process. Like conventional therapy that uses clinical assessments to understand levels or severity of depression, anxiety, and trauma, I use assessments to understand your unique energy and qualities as a spiritual Being in human form. These spiritual assessments can identify which of your parts have become burdened and where you can focus your efforts to return to your True Self. The assessments I use include the Enneagram, which describes your Ego structure, Numerology, which identifies the energies of your birth date and name, and Human Design, which reveals your unique energy system based on your date, time, and place of birth. The process of engaging with these assessments brings out your parts and reminds them of who they truly are and how they would much rather show up for you. I find that they serve as a great way to engage your parts and begin IFS.
In addition to IFS, I use another evidence-based therapy called EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and a variety of visualization techniques. EMDR stimulates the brain, helping desensitize traumatic memories, reprocess life experiences to gain new perspectives, and enhance outcomes. Visualization helps the brain try-on and acquaint itself with new possibilities. Seeing is believing. The assessments I use can help guide us towards what needs desensitization, reprocessing, and visualization for your transformation. Ultimately, the goal is to reunite Ego with Soul and have them operate collaboratively for you, supporting and guiding you through life.
My Journey with CounSouling
To give an example of this approach, I'll share a part of my own journey through CounSouling. My Enneagram type 3 gave me insight that my Ego protects my image and hides my flaws by pushing me to achieve more and be competitive. It also keeps me working hard to avoid feeling worthless. My Numerology revealed that my personality number is a 13/4, the number of a hard worker, but that its driven by my desire to be an authority on something (my Soul Urge number 8). My Human Design identified that my energy type is a Manifesting Generator, meaning my energy is best spent when I am following my passions. Together, I could see how my parts that made up my Enneagram type 3 were burdened by performing for others to feel worthy of their attention and admiration and that I had lost connection to my inner passions. I didn't need to stop being a hard worker, but I needed to work hard for me and my passions, not to please or impress someone else. I first did EMDR to work on one of my part's burdens of "I'm not good enough", which came from memories in school as a 2nd grader. Next I did IFS to connect with Cynthia, my part that helps me be a good student and apply what I am learning correctly and in an innovative way that impresses others. My work with Cynthia helped her realize she doesn't need to protect me from feeling not good enough anymore. She was able to see I am not in 2nd grade any more or struggling to keep up with my peers. We had made it! This allowed her to return to her naturally contributive state of enjoying learning and helping me pursue my interests for my own enjoyment. This process relieved me of the belief that I'm not good enough and redirected my focus to myself and what I want. I got so much out of this! I now feel less anxious and have so much more joy in life. I enjoy learning new things and sharing them with people who are interested. I'm not trying to impress anyone, I'm just having fun! This is how CounSouling was born!
Grow Through What You Go Through
Many of the people I have discussed my work with have asked me if it is possible to raise children without burdening their parts and separating their true Self from their awareness. This goal is what I call unadulteration, or keeping our children from being adulterated - influenced by adults. At this time in our society, I don't think it is possible, AND I wonder if it is actually helpful to have this lost and found process as Souls. It reminds me of Souls leaving Source/God-dess/The Universe/Creation and incarnating, and babies leaving their mother's womb. We have these separations for a reason, they play a role in our development. My studies of the Soul's purpose and journey, through a variety of sources, shows that Souls incarnate to have experiences and evolve, that we are an extension of Creation - Creation is experiencing Creation through us. We are our biological parent's creation and we create through our passions, work, and relationships. Losing and reclaiming ourselves through separation is much more rewarding than never having lost ourselves to begin with. We gain a lot in the process - if we let ourselves.
I encourage people to grow through what they go through. Let the events in your life shed light on the parts of you that need healing. Heal those parts and grow. Every moment of life is an opportunity to see yourself more clearly. Your experience of the world around you is a reflection of your internal world. Pay attention and take responsibility for yourself. Do your work, as you are the only one who can. Also know that others have to do their work, you can't do it for them. Stay focused on you and your journey.
The work I do with CounSouling is empowering. We explore what has happened (the past) in a curious way and then look at the result (the present) from a place of understanding and acceptance. Next we work with what is to create your next, which I find to be so fun and exciting, full of possibility! The process is rewarding. You get to know yourself on such a deep and meaningful level that you fall in love with you, the real You! This love allows you to commit to yourself and support yourself in ways you would not before. You'll allow yourself to have boundaries, prioritize your needs, and pursue your goals and dreams. At the same time, you'll be able to be more authentically engaged in relationships and able to help others along their journey just by being you!