Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Invitation
“I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing…”
Bobby Martin, MACP, LMHCA
Disclosure Statement: The statement below provides you information required by the State of Washington about myself as a provider and the treatment I offer to assist you in choosing the treatment and the provider who best suits your needs.
My therapeutic orientation is psychodynamic in nature, and based on the observation that people are often unaware of unconscious influences that determine their thoughts and actions. Lack of awareness can often lead to behavior that constrains their ability to fully comprehend or work through the difficulties they are facing. My hope is to help remove problematic symptoms that prohibit individuals from participating in meaningful relationships with themselves and others, while working toward leading a full and productive life as an active and positive contributor to their community.
My Approach
My therapeutic orientation is psychodynamic in nature, based on the observation that people are often unaware of unconscious influences that determine their perceptions and actions. This unawareness can often lead to behavior that often constrains their abilities to fully comprehend or work through the difficulties they are facing. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is based on mutual relationship and working within the context of the therapy relationship to help uncover and bring awareness to the primary sources of his or her barriers. My hope is to help remove problematic symptoms that prohibit individuals from participating in meaningful relationships and leading full and productive lives as an active and positive contributor to their community.
The intent of the psychodynamic therapeutic process is multifaceted and forever changing, however, there must be a clear direction and it is my job to adhere to. My hope is that as we journey through the therapeutic process that jointly strive to reach these components through trusting and open dialogue. Before we get started in therapy is important to begin with a mutual understanding that analytic treatment is first established by a clear understanding of the intent or purpose of the analytic endeavor. When this is achieved in the therapeutic process, trust is cultivated, and confidence begins to form. This is a necessary beginning stage of the therapeutic relationship and will guide the process toward our established outcome. Secondly, many people find it difficult to manage the many emotions and desires that they feel as they navigate life’s experiences. My desire would be that together we would forge an Increased capacity to experience and manage multiple affective states and learn to enjoy a full range of emotion.
As you gain increased access to the multiple aspects of yourself without experiencing shame, it is my intent that you would learn to regulate all of your emotions and in time build the capacity for self-reflection. Your capacity for self-reflection is the beginning stage of developing the ability to accept responsibility for all actions, tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty and become more truthful with yourself.
Ultimately, our collective trajectory will pave the way for cultivating space for you to think more creatively and openly about your past in order to avoid repeating it and relieve you of the internal constraints and rigidities that have become problematic and stiffed your ability to cultivate your imaginative and creative mind. It is also my hope that you would develop the capacity to love yourself and freely receive and offer love to others. We will also strive to help you develop a work ethic, that will allow you to provide for yourself and view yourself worthy to engage in meaningful and redemptive relationships and contribute positively to your community, leading to the ability to hope for a better future than the one that you had become accustomed to.
Build it
My therapeutic orientation is psychodynamic, meaning that alongside my client, we will explore parts of the self that you are not fully aware of, but affect the ways in which you perceive or respond to your experiences. We will endeavor together, to uncover patterns within your relationships, thought processes and actions, paying careful attention to the way those experiences manifest within our present relational context in order to cultivate a spirit of resiliency and the ability to self-regulate. Based on the observation that many past relational patterns are likely to be replicated within our therapeutic relationship, we will strive to come to a new understanding of how our relationship has imitated relationships of your past, knowing that they have shaped the way that you view relationships and live experientially within your current relational context.
One of our greatest tasks will be looking at connections between past and present and how those connections manifest within the relationship that we are constructing together. As we consider those manifestations, our discoveries will provide the basis for our work in establishing your ability to become more conscious, active, and affectively alive as you encounter others.
As we begin our work together, I would ask that we meet every week for 50 minutes per session. We can evaluate if we need more time together after our first few sessions. I would ask that you allow as much time as possible if you need to cancel our session, for any reason, and would also expect that you make your payments on a set day every month. It is paramount that you bring your truth to me as raw and uncensored as you are willing and that you communicate freely with me how you experience me, and I will do the same in return. There is much to be learned if we speak with
immediacy what we are experiencing from one another and endeavor to bring the truest versions of ourselves in every encounter. It is vital that you find the ability to freely express yourself and ask clarifying questions, no matter how difficult they may be. I also acknowledge that it will take time to develop the trust that is required to achieve this, but we need, as a basis to our relationship, the commitment to one another to endeavor to get there.