Aaron's Approach to Healing
I primarily use mindfulness-based body-mind psychotherapy to support meaningful change in my clients' lives. I have found that standard "talk therapy" has its limits. The thinking brain can get stuck in paralysis by analysis. So many in Western culture have forgotten to think with their real brain - their gut - and have lost their way. The gut integrates all four levels of being - sensation, emotion, thought, and soul - unifying all four into one powerful life-affirming impulse. When we don't listen to this unified impulse, we make choices that often hurt ourselves or others. In psychotherapy with me, I will support you in returning to your gut so you can identify, articulate, and implement your deeper truth.
When we are not hearing the messages of our gut and of our body, our body starts sending us messages. These messages are no different than the sensation of hunger when we need food. When we don't nourish our system by listening to our gut, we start feeling whole system hunger, in the form of depression, anxiety, insomnia, existential angst, disassociation, OCD, etc. I will help you start understanding the messages embedded in your symptoms so that you might start appropriately feeding your your whole system.
We live in a culture that teaches people to remove or medicate the "problem". This only leads to a deeper repression of the issue. Instead of believing in the illusion of removing the problem, you can see your mental health struggles as your soul's screaming to move towards your passions. In therapy with me, I will teach you to not avoid the problem and instead to actually enter the world of sensing the mental health issues in your body. All thoughts and emotions are actually founded on a physical sensation in the body. When you are depressed, you probably feel heavy; when you are anxious, you probably feel shaky; when you feel happy, you probably feel warm and light. I will then help you learn to sit with these feelings and eventually understand the need not being met. Once you know the missing need, I will support you in implementing that need in your life. Once you start learning that your symptoms are decipherable and implementable messages, you will start feeling more and more confident and successful.
My main inspiration comes from completing two years of studying Hakomi Mindfulness-Based Somatic Psychotherapy and one year of Core Energetics. In addition to these body-centered approaches, I integrate components of EMDR, Somatic Experiencing Trauma Therapy, Humanistic psychology, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Most recently, I am excited about my participation in a four-year Contemporary Orgone Somatic Psychotherapy training.
As a holistic psychotherapist, I do not push for medication and support my clients in healing through psychotherapy, mindfulness practice, healthy lifestyle choices, and encouraging my clients to seek out medical support from holistic psychiatric practitioners and functional medicine physicians.
For those that request it, I also feel passionate about including spirituality (based on your own spiritual sensitives), dream work, energy work, and soul work.