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| Forms : Contact Us : Directions : Kay's Website : What I do |
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 | I
am a Clinical Psychologist in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia since 1985.
I identify myself primarily as a psychotherapist who is devoted to the art and
craft of psychotherapy. I am a kitchen sink therapist. However, I use a method I am now describing as Roadmap Therapy. Other names I have used are Self Parenting and Building the Inner Therapist. I use this approach as a hub of assisting clients in self understanding and self management. | |||||||
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wonderful aspect of this approach and hence its name is that it is designed to
offer clients' a map of their insides with operating instructions. I am a progressive and hence fairly directive therapist. The good news with Roadmap Therapy is that most problems/issues can be simply understood. However, even though the line between point A and B can be simple and clearly delineated, the process of getting there can require a multifaceted approach. Yet, I feel my responsibility is to be active and encourage, guide and support progress in the journey. Clients' coming to therapy are doing something courageous, important and committing valuable resources of time and money. Hence, I believe that this commitment deserves to be met with the courage to be directive or not and the wisdom to know the difference. The integrated model of therapy I use does provide for a multifaceted way of working on problems/issues. There is no one exclusive way to solve psychological problems. The Roadmap Therapy Integrated model provides for behavioral, cognitive, emotional, and spiritual therapeutic approaches and methods for progressing. The reason that I am a kitchen sinker is that, from my vantage, there is no one method that is a stand alone. There are now a number of clear and effective methods of psychotherapy. So I use alot of Transactional Analysis and Self Parenting for it's incredible simplicity and clarity. And my approach is very influenced by Gestalt therapy because of its' lifestyle changing orientation towards taking responsibility, becoming whole and self supporting. I also use psychomotor as a major part of my approach because of it's powerful capacity to track, identify and heal family of origin wounds. Other approaches to therapy that are integrated in who I am as a therapist are: Experiential/Expressive therapies, 12 step way of life approaches, the theories of Freud, Jung, Object Relationists, Harvell Hendrix and David Snartch, and Eastern/ Buddhist approaches. So in any given therapy session, interventions I use can be ones with the goal of helping clients clear blocked emotions or healing childhood wounds. And/or I might also make suggestions for behavioral changes or adding a meditative or spiritual practice. And/or there may be experiences designed to change life scripts or change thought/cognitive patterns. And almost always there will be education and practice in self parenting and inner therapist building. My job is to ultimately help clients' build an inner therapist or inner grown up so they can fire me. I do this by giving the inner therapist a skill set for being aware of what is going and strategies for correction and healing. The task of psychotherapy is to find balance between tending to the past and being responsive to and responsible in our present. This is imminently doable too. And I believe one main reasons people are in pain or are struggling is because their present is contaminated by their historical beliefs, childhood unmetness and or historical hurt or anger. We are a product of our histories--we were victims sometime during our childhood. We no longer need to remain victims. To ignore our histories (and unconscious) or pretend that only our present behavior is all that's important is act like our book of life only has one page. I firmly believe in the healing potential and huge value of psychotherapy. I believe that psychotherapy is fairly simple though not necessarily easy. It takes courage and commitment yet the payoffs can be tremendous. back to top A little about how I got here... I was very fortunate to go to graduate school at Georgia State University which was headed by master Gestalt/TA/Experiential psychotherapists. The emphasis was as much on developing the person of the therapist than learning how to test or to assess the current research. Also, Al Pesso (who co-founded with his wife Diane Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor), was coming to town to work with graduate students every year. I was very interested in how the mind works and what makes people tick and I was in hog heaven at Georgia State. Well at least when I was taking therapy oriented coursework. As such I wanted to become a TA/Gestalt psychotherapist in line with Joan Fagen, Robert and Mary Goulding, Vann Joines, et. al. I also wanted to become a psychomotor therapist by training with Al Pesso. I was also intent, I think by virtue of who I am, on making psychotherapy clear, understandable, progressive and transportable. I don't know that I even knew this at the time, it just seems to be the way I was absorbing and integrating all these wonderful theories and methods. I came upon self parenting, or at least my version of it, when I was working with an alcoholic veteran during my internship. The self parenting I had known about was a literal approach that the TA therapist Jacqui Schiff was using in her work with schizophrenics. The TA and Gestalt approach had utilized a empty chair dialogue as part of redecion therapy and working with impasses. Other uses too. If I came up with anything original, and I am not sure I did other than focalize the concept, it was to place emphasis on using self parenting as a way of being in the world and as a way of understanding yourself. Again, Roadmap Therapy/Self Parenting/Building the Inner Therapist, from my perspective, provides a map of someone's insides with operating instructions. So that's why I say that my job as a therapist is to teach my clients how to be better internal parents/psychologists for themselves. Then they can fire me. Even though my emphasis is on clarity and progressive movement, I also believe in my bones in the value of depth oriented psychotherapy. Even though depth can happen in a short time, it also usually happens over a while. I guess I understand why some would be wary of long term therapy as a hoodwinking but why on earth would you want to hurry a process as important and delicate as healing a psyche/soul. So I believe therapy lasts as long as it lasts. And I am prepared to meet someone at wherever they are on this most important journey into self discovery in the service of self competence. This journey, which usually has some meandering in it can lead to increased joy, pleasure, meaning and connectedness. Pretty wonderful goals, don't you think. back to top | ||||||||