Psychological wellbeing is a journey.
Attuning to our brain-body experience can help to steer our compass toward psychological health and can provide guidance during difficult parts of our journey.
Brain-body development & growth
Wellbeing is a journey, on which many of us find unexpected bumps and turns. At times, we may struggle to find our path, and somewhere along the way, we all experience challenging terrain. We can become stuck in our behavioral patterns when strategies that were once effective become unhelpful for navigating challenge, discomfort, and pain. Attempts to problem-solve or plan our way out of discomfort and pain can lead us down a path of avoidance, short term relief, and long term cost. Reorienting towards wellbeing can generate questions about who we are, where we have been, what’s working, and perhaps what aspects of our life are no longer serving us.
As children, we rely on our attachment figures to create experiences of physical and emotional safety. Similarly, as adults, we also rely on experiences within our close relationships for a foundational sense of safety in the world. As humans, we exist within a relational context and our interpersonal relationships create meaningful context within which our brain-body system interprets cues of safety and threat. When we can reliably depend on receiving validation, emotional attunement, and care within our attachment relationships, these ongoing co-regulatory experiences provide the scaffolded framework from which self-regulation can develop.
Why a brain-body approach?
Making and sustaining change requires a foundational sense of safety. It is not enough to have a cognitive awareness of physical safety. Instead, we need ongoing experiences of safety, including emotional, interpersonal, and physical safety. Without a felt-sense of safety, our brain-body system will direct resources to survival, rather than growth and change.
Through the process of neuroception (see Porges, 2011), the human brain is constantly assessing for safety versus threat as our brain-body system interfaces with the world. Without conscious awareness, we tune into the environmental input, interpersonal input, and interoceptive input (i.e., cues generated within our brain-body system, such as hunger). Experiences of ongoing stress, anxiety, and overwhelm can leave lasting effects in the autonomic nervous system (ANS), leaving our brain-body system especially attuned to threat. Daily emotional and behavioral struggles can emerge as our brain-body system becomes increasingly “stuck” in dysregulation.
Learning to tune into our brain-body experience can open up opportunities for greater self-understanding, and can help us generate insight into our emotional and behavioral struggles. With deeper self-understanding of how we experience our world, we can learn new ways of responding to and engaging with our daily experiences, including our discomfort and pain. Practicing a willingness to make contact with our full brain-body experience can help us become “unstuck” and can move us toward growth and expanded capacity for self-regulation.
With both “bottom-up” and “top-down” interventions, I help others create their own unique path of safety, connection, and wellbeing.
Hi, I’m Caitlin (she/her).
I’m glad you’re here.
I’m an Applied Developmental Psychologist, licensed psychotherapist, mother of three, soccer coach, and Certified SSP Provider. I value connection and community. I believe in the importance of attuning to our brain-body cues and in practicing a willingness to engage in the present moment experience, rather than get stuck on our thoughts of the past or future. I also love science and rely on evidence-based practices in my professional work. I value bringing openness and curiosity, and in living in connection with nature and wild spaces.
Offerings
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Individual Psychotherapy
I provide individual psychotherapy using either a ‘walk & talk’ modality, or online teletherapy format. I focus on supporting individuals to notice and embrace their unique brain-body experience, while practicing acceptance and cultivating willingness to be in discomfort as we work toward growth and change.
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Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP)
The SSP is an evidence-based listening therapy designed to increase our capacity for self-regulation, improve autonomic nervous system resilience, improve auditory processing, reduce sound sensitivities, and increase our capacity to feel open and connected to who and what we value most.