Approaches to Therapy
This table lists the orientations we use at Shine a Light. Below is brief descriptions of how each approach can help deal with specific issues.
| Humanistic Psychology Cognitive Therapy Cognitive Behavioral Therapy AEDP Psychodynamic Therapy Existential Psychotherapy Transpersonal Psychotherapy Brief/Solution Focused Therapy |
Client-Centered Therapy Gestalt Therapy Re-evaluation Counseling Somatic Approaches Mindfulness & Focusing Hakomi Narrative Therapy |
Humanistic Psychology
Humanistic psychology is one of the major branches of the field. All of the approaches to therapy I use fall under this umbrella. Humanistic approaches spring from a foundational belief in the potential for conscious self-awareness to transform our lives. While acknowledging the influences of unconscious patterns and behavioral conditioning, humanistic psychology focuses on the power people have to formulate meaning and exercise choice. Humanistic approaches support the inherent goodness within each person that seeks to actualize their potential to choose a rich and fulfilling life.
Cognitive Therapy
Cognitive therapy addresses the beliefs and interpretations that determine our experience. It helps people identify the thoughts they have about the things they perceive. We may not be able to change everything about the world around us, but we can consciously evaluate the meanings we give to events. These meanings and interpretations have a profound impact on what emotions we experience. With self-reflection, we can change any beliefs that may be causing unnecessary distress. There are many versions of cognitive therapy including: narrative therapy, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), Byron Katie’s work, motivational interviewing, and rational-emotive therapy.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive behavioral therapy combines cognitive therapy with an additional focus on generating desired behavioral changes. Clients are asked not only to identify the thoughts that generate problematic emotions. They are also asked to reflect on how they might change the ways they respond to stressors in their lives. This can include breaking counterproductive habits or addictions and establishing new healthier habits. It can also include developing new skills or overcoming fears through successfully changing behaviors one small step at a time. CBT is a highly researched approach that has often been proven to be very effective.
Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP)
AEDP is a relatively new approach that involves a a strong emotional connection between therapist and client. Emotional awareness is developed in clients by the therapist’s willingness to deeply attune to the client’s feelings. By alieviating a client’s sense of aloneness with their feelings, clients are helped to more deeply connect with themselves. The therapist’s strong acceptance and welcoming of a client’s emotions helps them become more deeply accepting of themselves. AEDP also helps clients focus on their natural, positive emotional experience, enhancing their ability to identify with their own sense of happiness, love and well being. For a full description of AEDP click here.
Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychodynamic approaches to therapy focus keenly upon the effect of our childhood experiences on our adult lives. Our early relationships form a template from which we see the world. By exploring our memories of childhood we can identify how our past circumstances may have shaped or limited us. With insight and healing, we gain greater compassion for ourselves and our families. And we open to new possibilities in life when we fully realize how to release any limitations we learned in the past.
Existential Psychotherapy
Existential psychotherapy springs from the philosophical belief that human existence presents certain challenges that all people must face in some way. These challenges include dealing with the realities of:
The Inevitability of Death,
The Need for Meaning,
The Struggle of Aloneness, and
The Responsibility for Our Choices
By viewing these challenges as universal human dilemmas, existential psychotherapy does not pathologize people for their difficulties in dealing with these challenges. Rather, therapy offers each person assistance in resolving these issues in their own unique way. There are no right or wrong answers, only an artful search for each person’s inner truths.
Transpersonal Psychotherapy
Transpersonal psychotherapy addresses our connection to that which goes beyond the individual sense of self. However it may be defined, we are all in some relationship to the rest of the universe. For some, this connection is understood through existing religions or philosophies. For others, the nature of the connection is less formalized. Transpersonal psychotherapy helps people identify their unique understanding of their place in the world and the greater forces of which we are all a part. Grounding yourself in a spiritual perspective that works for you can have profound effects on the way you approach your life and whatever challenges it presents.
Brief Therapy / Solution Focused Therapy
Brief therapy is a style that addresses a client’s most pressing issues as quickly and efficiently as possible. Brief therapy often utilizes cognitive and behavioral approaches (CBT). It begins by helping a person clearly articulate their goals for therapy. Each goal is defined by achievable criteria. Then clear steps toward progress are identified. The therapist encourages and coaches the client to stay focused on the solution, problem solving any impediment to success. This style was born from the fact that many people do not have enough money or time for more than a few counseling sessions. While critics contend that more profound changes are not likely through this approach, some clients find the clarity and directness of brief therapy to be a good fit for their goals.
Client-Centered Therapy
Client-centered therapy was originated by Carl Rogers, a pioneer of humanistic psychology. A client-centered therapist’s job is to create a fertile atmosphere for honest self-reflection. The therapist does not offer interpretations or analysis of the client’s experience. Instead, the therapist uses reflective listening to help clients understand themselves more deeply. Client-centered therapists focus on providing three essential ingredients for therapeutic growth: empathy, authenticity, and unconditional positive regard. When clients receive genuine understanding and authentic respect, they can be honest with themselves in new ways.
To provide all three elements, therapists must be very clear within themselves. Any unexamined judgments or rigid thinking can prevent a therapist from fully embracing the goodness of the client. Client-centered therapists must have good access to their own feelings in order to provide accurate empathy. But they also need clear boundaries, so that they do not become enmeshed in the client’s experience.
Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt therapy was originated by Fritz Perls. The name comes from the German word for wholeness. Gestalt therapy helps clients achieve a greater sense of wholeness by increasing self-awareness and resolving inner conflict. Often emotional distress, impulsive behavior, anxiety or depression is a result of painful battles between one part of yourself and another. Gestalt therapy helps clients give voice to all parts of themselves so that a more integrated self-knowledge can be attained. One common technique involves using different chairs when speaking from different parts of oneself. The resulting self-integration helps people be more authentic, confident, and decisive. It also helps people establish personal boundaries and clearly negotiated relationships.
Gestalt awareness techniques also teach clients to heighten their awareness of themselves in the present moment. People learn to differentiate between the old stories they have been telling themselves and present moment truths arising from their spontaneous thoughts and feelings. Being able to competently track present awareness is considered more useful than lengthy explorations of the past.
Re-evaluation Counseling (Co-counseling)
Re-evaluation counseling is a peer counseling approach formulated by Harvey Jackins. Many of the principles and techniques, however, are usable in professional therapy as well. Re-evaluation counseling places a high value on the natural process of discharging emotions. The counselor assists the client to talk, cry, tremble, yawn or otherwise release feelings physically. These natural forms of release are often suppressed or inhibited by cultural messages that discourage any show of emotion. When a counselor can help a person feel safe, however, feelings often spontaneously discharge. When this healing release occurs the client often experiences a fresh ability to re-evaluate limiting beliefs that have been generating stress. Cognitive shifts are facilitated by the reduced burden of pent-up emotion.
Somatic Approaches
Somatic approaches to therapy focus on awareness of the body. Each emotion has a sensory component (feeling) and a cognitive component (interpretation). Whereas cognitive therapies focus on thoughts, somatic approaches begin by tracking awareness of sensation. The natural release of emotions is often blocked by habitual patterns of tension that clamp down on suppressed feelings. Somatic approaches help a client release these holding patterns in order to free up the natural process of emotional discharge. This approach is primarily kinesthetic, and works well with people who are less inclined toward verbal processing, or who want to increase their self-reflection tools beyond the realm of talk-therapy.
Mindfulness & Focusing
Mindfulness and Focusing are both self-awareness practices that are often used in counseling sessions. Focusing is a specific technique developed by Eugene Gendlin. It guides a client to track the subtleties of emotional experience by identifying the “felt-sense” of chronic vague feelings. Articulating feelings through focusing helps clients then identify the source and ways to release the emotions identified.
Mindfulness is a general term for the practice of observing oneself. The concept is central to meditation (particularly Buddhist styles). In mindfulness, a person cultivates a state of consciousness wherein they can observe their thoughts and feelings from a neutral perspective. They learn to remain a detached witness as their thoughts and emotions arise and recede. The practice is particularly useful in preventing anxiety or anger from escalating.
Hakomi
Hakomi is a body-oriented psychotherapy developed by Ron Kurtz. It combines elements of multiple approaches into a single therapeutic orientation. Hakomi draws upon psychodynamic therapy, somatic approaches, mindfulness, gestalt, and hypnotherapy to help clients deeply explore the experiences that have shaped their personalities. Hakomi is especially helpful in healing traumatic past experiences. It not only offers insight into family relationship dynamics, it also provides healing experiences that release feelings and allow new possibilities for personal growth.
Narrative Therapy
Narrative therapy is a cognitive approach that focuses on the stories we tell ourselves about our lives. Regardless of events in our past, it is the narrative we continue to tell ourselves that determines our experience of our lives. In narrative therapy, the storylines we have (consciously or unconsciously) invented are examined. In the process, we have a chance to evaluate both the accuracy and the emotional impact of our stories. Often, clients choose to rewrite the narrative of their life in ways that result in greater self-compassion and greater personal empowerment. Stories of victimization, for instance, may be re-written as stories of courageous survival. There are many sides to truth. Narrative therapy helps us to consider alternatives when we are stuck in a perspective that only recycles painful emotion.
Request an Appointment
To Request an Appointment at Shine a Light or NPCC, please fill out this form. We respond to inquiries Monday through Friday. All inquiries we receive on the weekends or holidays will be processed the next business day. Thank you for your patience. If you need immediate services, please call 911.
Agency Inquiries
New Office in San Francisco!
Shine a Light Counseling Center is please to merge with New Perspectives Center for Counseling. NPCC has been serving the San Francisco community for thirty years. Now NPCC is transitioning to become the San Francisco site for Shine a Light. NPCC will retain its name, character and history. For information about NPCC or counseling in San Francisco:
New Perspectives Center for Counseling (link)
Emergency Contact
Shine a Light does not provide crisis services. If you have a mental health emergency, call 988 or 911. Or click here for more Crisis Resources
Telephone Contact
You can call Shine a Light at 831-996-1222, but we encourage you to use the email forms to the left. If you call, please leave the following:
- Phone number
- Preferred location
- Best times to meet
- Issue you want help with
- What insurance you have (if any)
FAX us at: 831-417-0443
Good Faith Estimate
You have the right to receive a “Good Faith Estimate” explaining how much your therapy sessions will cost. Your fee will be set according to a sliding scale, in collaboration with your therapist, prior to your first counseling session. Total costs depend upon the number of sessions you choose to utilize.
If you have private health insurance and we are not in-network with your plan, please be aware that your costs for therapy may be less by using an in-network provider. This will depend upon your plan's deductible amounts and co-payments. In some cases, counseling at Shine a Light is less costly than using private insurance.
If you hope to use "out of network" benefits through your private insurance, please be aware that many plans will not reimburse for services provided by trainees. Please request an Associate level therapists for out-of-network billing.
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