When, for whatever reason, our developmental needs were not met in a clean and direct way, we as children developed strategies to get an approximation of them. Those same strategies which were at least partly effective when we were young get in our way as adults, leading to largely unconscious and frustrating behaviors. Some examples include: withdrawing, numbing out, collapsing, neediness, self sabotage, resentment, picking unnecessary fights, guardedness, or perfectionism. That’s an incomplete list, but perhaps you recognize some of these behaviors in yourself. Through another lens, we can easily see how attachment wounding is a maladaptive response to our childhood needs for safety and connection not being met. These patterns are are ways we adapted to our early environment. They are deeply ingrained and often stubbornly resistant to logic or understanding. And these present-day frustrations are what often brings people into offices like mine.

I practice in a relatively niche modality known as Core Energetics. Core Energetics is a somatic psychodynamic model that in some ways resembles conventional psychotherapy, but which is fundamentally quite different. Core Energetics practitioners see the body and mind to be a continuous whole, and thus work with the body to unlock old emotional wounds, often bypassing the narrative mind. While some sessions may resemble talk therapy, in most sessions we will also practice grounding and energizing your body, and in some sessions there may be very little talking at all. In this modality, we see the body as the tool for deep transformation. As you unblock and release old patterns, we then template more empowered ways of being in your life.

I strongly believe that the essence of transformation lies in deep human connection, with all its messy imperfections. This work is at times self confronting, but it is also life affirming and confidence building. We live in an era where AI is increasingly heralded as a substitute for human connection, but I believe that the answer to our increasing disconnection from ourselves and one another is in the vulnerable intimacy of real-life connection. Yes, it is more challenging and frightening, but genuine relationships between humans are the lived places where we can know ourselves and be known, the places where we come alive.