Auckland PSI^TM  Institute                                                       

3. Individual Psychotherapy

Are you tired of spending time in therapy analysing your problems but find you're not able to change them? Do you have lots of "insight" that doesn't seem to help you actually get a handle on your behaviour?

When you come in for your first appointment, you may have a lot to say, or you may be so nervous that you don't know what say. Trust is a key issue that may have to be revisited because it is not a static thing - it comes and it goes, and generally has to be earned to be meaningful. We start by exploring and enhancing your strengths and resources. Much of what you need to work on may not be accessible to direct verbal processing. Problems "trapped in the body" do not go away simply by talking. For example, even if you "know" that you are physically safe place, until your body calms down enough to take in new information, you won't be able to make use of this intellectual knowledge because those centres of the brain may be "off-line". For this reason, PSI addresses issues of perceived safety and trust first, and teaches self awareness and self modulation of physical activation levels throughout the work.

PSI enables you to re-embody yourself, identify and establish personal boundaries, match the right “feed to the right need”, and frees up energy entangled in obsessions and compulsions, or drained by body memories and reenactments. It helps you work with behaviours that feel out of control by helping you reconnect to disowned aspects of self, and develop internal cooperation and shared goals.

         Eating and body image problems can express some of our deepest experiences as women and men. Issues such as staying true to our hunger/s; defining ourselves within and outside of relationships to others; and taking up space and being visible in a sometimes dangerous world, may show up in our relationships to food and body.

        When you come in for your first appointment, you may have a lot to say, or you may be so nervous that you don't know what say. Trust is a key issue, and you may feel afraid to trust or you may want to dive right in. Either way, we will both come to understand that trust is not a static thing - it comes and it goes, and generally has to be earned to be meaningful. While we are exploring these complexities, it's often a relief to start talking.

        We begin by helping you explore your personal experiences of food, feeding, fat, and body size, and why these issues are so painful. You may have been put on diets or diet pills, forced to eat when you weren't hungry, weighed and lectured by well meaning (or not so well meaning?) doctors or relatives, or felt otherwise disrespected and intruded upon. I will not be weighing you or telling you what or what not to eat. This may feel like a relief, or you may not like that. Some people become dependent on others to tell them what to eat. I will simply be encouraging you to sense your hunger and satiation points, and to notice when you can follow them as guides, and when it seems too difficult.

The PSI Approach to Eating Problems

        We may choose to include journal, art, or movement work, and guided fantasies to help you express what the eating problem has been trying to say. Ultimately, you will learn to eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full. But in the meantime, when you cannot always do this, we will use the symptoms to point us to the triggers and issues in your life that you have been using bingeing, starving, and/or purging to solve. We work these through one by one, until you feel stronger to face these difficulties without depriving or punishing yourself with food.

Individual sessions are charged at $135 per 50 minute session. Longer sessions are pro-rated accordingly.  To make an appointment call (027) 657 2106 or email: jlightstone-at-gmail.com

        Eating and body image problems can express some of our deepest experiences as women and men. Issues such as staying true to our hunger/s; defining ourselves within and outside of relationships to others; and taking up space and being visible in a sometimes dangerous world, may show up in our relationships to food and body.

        Gender roles, the victimization of "fat", and cultural stereotypes all play a role in the development of eating and body image problems. These influences interact with our genetic endowments, family upbringing, and experiences with peers in a multitude of ways. All of this must be brought into our explorations of how your particular problem with food developed the way it did.

        Throughout we will be working toward increased self esteem and body size acceptance. Acceptance does not mean the same as approval. Like trust, it comes and goes, and has to be earned to be meaningful. But this acceptance can be earned as you struggle to attune yourself to your body's internal signals, work through exercise resistance or compulsion, and prove to yourself that you can become a reliable self-feeder.

   If you are having difficulty standing up for yourself or asking for what you really need and want, you must first understand what is getting in your way. In addition to working to remove these impediments, there are many different skills and techniques that can be learned and practiced in a therapy setting.  Judy led her first Assertiveness Training Group as a counselling intern in 1980; she helped design and run an empowerment curriculum for displaced homemakers from 1981-1983, and has been learning new skills ever since. Self-empowerment is a natural outcome of individual therapy, and many of the approaches used in workshops and groups can be applied in one to one counselling. When the issues interfere with your relationships, couples counselling may offer the best solutions.