Healing begins by being with what isn't working, using less judgment, & the addition of curiosity. This is easier said than done, takes courage, & practice. And, we've likely built walls & created stories that may contradict this way of healing but were necessary to keep us emotionally safe as children. Blending mindfulness, somatic approaches, & creative explorations, we'll honor these walls & stories while safely shifting them into what feels more authentic. Paradoxically your difficult feelings and experiences are the doorways to the resources within yourself and your healing.
In being with what is, we begin to turn on the lights in a dark room. With this illumination, we get to decide if we want to stay in the room, change the furniture around, open a window, or leave the room entirely to explore others.
The blending of Somatic, Gestalt, and Creative arts therapy generates a dynamic, holistic, and experiential therapy that focuses on your present moment experience and encourages our natural movement toward creativity, spontaneity, and growth. Sometimes "thinking" or "talking" about problems is not enough, and a deeper level of experience and creativity is needed to get to the heart of a difficult situation.
Beyond talking, we help people connect to their inner resources by bringing attention to the way their bodies and emotions mix with their beliefs and thoughts. We’ll uncover the patterns, habits, beliefs, and blocks which contribute to stress and interfere with your satisfaction. By using the creative process with an emphasis on the here and now, you can find a supportive environment in which to heal within yourself. Clients often find that the creative and experiential process gets to the essence of what's really happening and promotes self-awareness, esteem, and insight.
Creative Now Therapy is a name inspired by the power of the present moment and how important this mode and way of being is in life and in therapy. It is a reminder for myself (Cris) and the therapist’s here at CNT to always return to this place as a way to heal, be, and explore.
Somatic therapy includes + brings attention to the experiences of our bodies, including sensations, emotions, feelings, and yes, even your thoughts, and how they all interface to create a fuller picture of our situation. We experience life events and trauma in our body, meaning that thinking or rationalizing our way through is only part of the picture, we need to include our embodied experience in order to heal.
Moreover, many of us have had to survive by or have been socialized to diminish the connection to our body (move away from our feelings) to avoid painful situations as child. While this was a brilliant solution at the time, as an adult this can have deep consequences including anxiety, depression, and other significant health issues. Bringing our body, it’s sensations and feelings, into the therapy situation along with our thoughts and stories can help us uncover beliefs and ways of being that are not in our awareness but are deeply impacting our behavior and choices. Together we will create a sense of safety within your body to support you in better tolerating life’s shifting sands and inevitable uncertainties. But more than that, you can learn to open to your immense creativity and expansiveness by including the wisdom of your body.
Gestalt psychotherapy brings attention to your present moment experience, the therapist–client relationship, environmental and social contexts, and the myriad of adjustments we make from moment to moment. We will engage in real-time therapeutic experiments to deepen our awareness and try out new behaviors to co-create organic coping skills. We will wade through many moments together: some empowering and positive, others challenging, difficult, or dark. These moments will be safely held and welcomed and will allow you to expand in your ability tolerate lifes changing landscapes. This has an additional important function: your integration and moving into wholeness.
Art therapy can assist us in accessing core material that can often slip under the radar in talk therapy. Sometimes we don’t have the words to begin, or we don’t even know what or why we’re feeling the way we are. Art making and exploration activates a different part of ourselves and engages our creativity to move out of the experience of stuckness and into visualizing solutions, calming our nervous systems, becoming reacquainted with our strengths, or discovering something new about ourselves or our situation.