Here is a list of tools and techniques that I use regularly. Often I incorporate pieces of many of them in a single session. There are many other tools that I use that I have not included here like Reiki, Ho-oponopono, A course in miracles, Sensori-motor therapy and many more that I have come cross throughout the years and found useful.
EMDR Trauma Tapping. Eye Movement Desensatization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an incredibly powerful technique for clearing out trauma. It uses a form of bilateral stimulation (alternating stimulation to the left and right side of the body with tapping, eye movement or sound) to release traumatic memories. When an upsetting event occurs in childhood, if its stressful enough it registers in the right hemisphere of the brain as a snapshot (unchanging as the rest of the person matures), left to be experienced and re-experienced in its original form and without the logical understanding of the left hemisphere of the brain. The bilateral stimulation of EMDR helps the two hemispheres communicate so that the experience of the right hemisphere can be verbalized by the left hemisphere and integrated back into the mature self. EMDR can be used to clear out a specific trauma or to create a deeper understanding of current life difficulties by finding their source.
Clinical Hypnotherapy – Hypnosis is a state where the brain is relaxed (much like in meditation) and focused on one particular thing, at the exclusion of other things. A simple example is when we are watching a movie – our mind is focused on the scene in front of us and (unless the movie is crappy) is not focused on the fact that we are in a movie theatre, watching actors filmed on a camera. This relaxed+focused brain state allows us to quiet down the chattering conscious mind enough to access the Subconscious information centre that holds all of our memories, beliefs, values and intuition. This is a HUGE asset as you can imagine for working with those stubborn habitual patterns that affect us negatively but are outside of our Conscious processing mind (ie. anything you do with ought consciously choosing to do it).
EFT Meridian Tapping. EFT is an incredibly useful and simple technique that releases negative experiences and beliefs. It combines modern psychology and a five thousand year-old science that views the the body as containing different pathways carrying electrical impulses through the body (much like veins carry blood). Accupuncture and Accupressure use this same approach but the practitioners use needles and sometimes painful pressure to access these meridian points. With EFT we use gentle tapping and an understanding of our emotional system to clear emotional blockages and find relief. This technique is easy to use and easy to teach, and i am confident that it will become an important tool for your wellness management.
Matrix Re-imprinting. MR is a gentle yet powerful technique to heal childhood experiences. Using Meridian tapping and visualization we access old traumatic experiences and release the negative emotions that are attached to them, allowing our child self to feel more supported, resourced and have a healthier perspective of the experience.
Hakomi Therapy – A gentle body centred therapy that uses mindfulness (paying attention to our body sensations) to create a greater understanding of our core beliefs which limit our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In Hakomi we use special techniques to access this unconscious information and help the client release it. Hakomi techniques are especially effective tools that free our bodies from the defenses that imprison it.
Internal Family Systems. An incredibly powerful technique that allows us to work with multiple parts of ourselves. Essentially doing Family therapy with all the different parts of you. It is very cool!
Spiritual Hypnosis – For the more spiritually minded client, this is an AMAZING tool. We can access your intuitive voice, your higher self, access Past -lives either for trauma release or just for curiosity, heal multi-generational trauma, do Soul integration and much much more.
Life Coaching. Life Coaching is a process of figuring our what is important to you in life, whether you are living your life in a way that honours that, and if not, what you need to change in order to create a better match between the two.
NLP (Neurolingustic Programming) – NLP is like Life Coaching on overdrive. It is a method of influencing brain behaviour (the “neuro” part of the phrase) through the use of language (the “linguistic” part) and other types of communication to enable you to “re-code” the way the brain responds to stimuli (that’s the “programming”) and create new and better behaviours.
Dream Analysis. Dreams can give us important information about our experience of the world and our lives that we have little access to in our daily life. Recurrent dreams especially let us know that something in our psyche is tangled up. Through dream analysis, we are able to untangle the knots, reach a greater understanding of our experiences and release what is ready to be released. I use several techniques to dean analysis (which i can teach you) throughout our sessions.
Adlerian Life Style Assessment. The Life style is essentially a person’s personality structure that develops in the first few years of life and remains relatively stable throughout the lifetime. It is based on a many things including our birth order, our earliest memories, our family values, and our early understanding of the world. Exploring the lifestyle helps us to expose limiting beliefs that get in the way of our health, for example “It is impossible have a happy home AND a fulfilling career”. I often use the lifestyle assessment as part of the first session intake process where i gather information about your early life experiences.
Focusing Therapy. An especially useful body centred technique that uses mindfulness (looking inside the body) to increase our understanding of the feelings, beliefs, and experiences that effect us on a daily basis. Through a process of turning our attention inside our bodies and creating a curious and non-judgemental relationship with whatever is there we can shift our experience from anger and hate to one of gentle relief.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). A structured approach to dealing with thoughts and behaviours that have become problematic. It focuses on changing the thoughts and behaviours rather than our relationship to them. In my experience CBT is useful as an additive to therapy rather than the core approach due to its proven ability to relieve symptoms but not to heal the wound.
Mindfulness – The ability to pay attention to internal processes and external triggers without adding commentary (judging, analyzing, liking or not liking). It will be the single most important tool in your health tool belt.
HeartMath Breathing – We now know that our heart is the transmits the largest amount of electromagnetic energy in our whole body. Science used to think that the brain communicates to the heart, and thats true but what we didn’t know until recently is that heart actually communicates with the brain much more. The heart has the ability to change the brain! think about how easy it is for a powerful thought to influence your thinking, and how difficult it is to think your way out of a strong feeling. HeartMath exercises are extremely powerful stress busters, pattern interrupts and perspective shifters.