Psychotherapy and emotional support.

64-talking-therapies-8

In 1986 I contacted the University of Pittsburg School of Medicine to apply to their psychiatry residency program. When they asked why I wanted to be a psychiatrist, I told them that I wanted to talk with people who were suffering and help them find a way out of their problems.

The response was swift.

We don’t do that anymore. Our approach in modern psychiatry is to use psychotropic medications. If you want to talk with people this is not the proper training for you.

So I moved on. I resolved not to do a residency to become  a psychiatrist. Instead, I got training via other venues in helping people via talk therapy and that is part of what informs my work today. My MA, Psychology and Comparative Religion, training as a therapist at Forest Hospital, Des Plaines, Illinois, many courses in applied psychology, Neurolinguistic Programming ( Practitioner, Master Practitioner, Trainer levels; I also taught a 110 hour course in this subject), the ability to feel energetic shifts in patients in connection with their emotional shifts,  the work of Byron Katie, Milton Erickson, MD, Lester Levenson, and many years of sensitive listening, all inform my support for the emotional states and changing of them with patients.

I am not a trained psychiatrist, a psychologist nor other mental health professional. However, I find it impossible to help people without in some way dealing with their emotional and attitudinal side.

Beliefs and attitudes directly lead to emotional states some of which are very unpleasant and conflict with our fundamental desire for happiness. Using various approaches, these can dramatically be shifted.

Together with the physical and other diagnostic and treatment tools I use, helping calm the mind that is making our life so unpleasant, is one of my major ways of helping my patients.