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Kathryn Shelton,LCSW
Integrative Psychotherapy
Areas of Expertise
Integrative Psychotherapy
Integrative psychotherapy is an approach to treatment where I draw on principals from different therapeutic orientations best suited for your particular challenge. I have over 20 years of experience providing psychotherapy to adults and adolescents. In this time, I have had the opportunity to learn and practice multiple modalities. I operate from a place of mindfulness in all of my sessions. As a mindfulness practitioner it is my utmost priority to be present in the moment with you. I hold space for all of you emotions, feelings, thoughts, opinions and experiences. I do this while maintaining a non-judgmental and accepting atmosphere. My goal is to provide emotional safety so that you can explore your internal world as well as how you move through life in relation to others. The therapeutic relationship is key to this process.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy incorporates psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral principals with mindfulness practices to form a balance of insight and acceptance. Mindfulness skills can help one access and learn to tolerate distressing emotions. I will help you learn to attune to signals from your nervous system (flight, flight, freeze, or fawn). Recognizing when its's activated and learning how move to calm when it's warranted. It is natural and inherently protective to want avoid discomfort. The body helps by triggering the defense system. But sometimes that level of defense is not helpful. ie. there is no tiger chasing us! Discomfort can be physical, physiological, emotional, mental, or situational. However, when we try to avoid our emotional experience it only grows stronger perpetrating more need for avoidance, numbing, or others compulsive behaviors. In mindfulness based therapy I help you to approach your emotional experience, whatever it may be, with non-judgment, compassion, and acceptance. When we practice allowing ourselves to feel and accept a wider range of emotions, we can reduce suffering. Acceptance does not mean changes in life are not made. In fact, it's the opposite. When we allow for our full experience it can become crystal clear if there changes we would benefit from making.
Behavioral Coaching
Behavioral coaching is a method of treatment where goals and obstacles to reaching goals are identified. Working together we can discover what is getting in your way. Common behaviors are avoidance, perfectionism and emotional reactivity.
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
For some, therapy is a longer term endeavor that unfolds over time as you encounter various changes and challenges in your life.
Psychodynamic therapy recognizes that we are naturally influenced by our childhood environment. It understand that we are often acting from a place of pain, fear or sadness that we are not entirely aware of.
The safety of therapeutic relationship plays a large and transformative role as you deal with underlying causes of suffering. By exploring your upbringing, including your family system, cultural factors, traumas, societal influence and pressures, we start to understand the factors that shaped you. They shaped how you view yourself, thoughts, feelings and how you relate to others and the world as a whole.
Insights in these areas can reveal limiting belief systems and that were perhaps created for a protective purpose but are no longer serving you.
Now can be the time for a new way of being and relating to yourself and others.
Click here for more on my approach.
Psychedelic Integration Therapy
Archeological evidence suggests that plant medicines have been used in indigenous communities for over 5000 years. Currently the only legal psychedelic available in the US is Ketamine. I do not endorse any illegal activity or make referrals to obtain illegal substances. I do however believe in education and harm reduction.
Your experiences with psychedelics deserve to be explored in a safe, non-judgmental environment and with an educated mental health professional. I can provide this for you wether you are considering psychedelics or have previously had psychedelic experiences.
Click here for more on Psychedelic Integration Therapy.
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