A Healing Memories Approach to Therapy

When you work with me, we go straight to the heart.

The heart represents the whole person, the place where all dimensions of our being intersect.

It is also difficult to understand and change.

While the heart is a place of intuition and desire, it is also a place of feeling and memory. In my opinion, counseling approaches that try to teach you something, such as rational thinking, mindfulness, or new behavioral skills, ultimately fail to give you what really matters: change within. A Healing of Memories approach asks a different question:

What is keeping you FROM rational thinking, mindfulness, or new behavioral skills?

Most of the time, the answer lies within your subconscious, in your store of memories. While research has shown a statistical effect supporting the benefits of various therapies, the most rapid and effect therapy finds and processes the unresolved memories, or systems of memories, that underly an issue. This is termed memory reconsolidation in the literature. Specific therapies included Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), the Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy (DNMS), and Internal Family Systems (IFS). These seek to change the way memories are stored in the brain, or the way neural networks associated with different mindsets work together.

Memory-based clinical approaches by themselves can bring tremendous relief. However, combine them with the rich resources of the Catholic Faith, and you have access to a deeper level of healing. The best clinical therapy has limits. With the Lord, there are no limits.