Welcome!
I believe our path as humans in this life is to learn how to embrace all that is happening within and outside of ourselves. The more we resist our situations and the parts of ourselves or others we don't like, the more entrenched we become within those parts. The more we come to acceptance and are compassionate toward that which we want to change, the easier we are able to shift our reactions to what occurs around us and inside us.
My general approach can best be described as Client-centered, strength-based, trauma-informed, positive psychology. Client-centered strength-based counseling and coaching assumes that all clients are whole and have the internal resources to work through life issues but may not have learned how to access them. I help you access and strengthen your inner resources. I am trauma-informed in that I understand how trauma impacts our lives in ways that most of us don't realize and I know how to work with trauma through a somatic modality called EMDR.
With the use of EMDR, I can assist in helping you remove mental and emotional blocks as related to past trauma, as well as build mental and emotional strengths and resources. For more information about EMDR, look under Individual Counseling.
I don't subscribe to the "disease" model, which assumes that people have something wrong that needs to be fixed. Life holds challenges for all of us, and sometimes bad things do happen to good people. Positive Psychology is about, not what happens to us, but how we react to what happens to us. I strongly believe in the human spirit's ability to have a happy, satisfying life and in using counseling to assist in this process.
While I believe insight can be helpful to the healing process, I feel that insight alone is generally not enough to make lasting changes. It is what we choose to do with that insight or understanding of ourselves that will create the change in our lives. While telling your "story" is important in the beginning and can be therapeutic in and of itself, it's not where the lasting change occurs. My approach is highly interactive and includes but is not limited to; exploration questions, psychoeducation, guided processes to contact internal resources, EMDR where appropriate, physical movement and practice assignments in-between sessions.
All persons of any gender/non-binary orientation and/or sexual orientation are welcome
Tracy Wikander, LMFT, Therapist
