How I Work

While the modality of therapy that I use may be one of many, I always offer non-judgmental presence, lovingkindness, mindfulness and compassion to my clients so that they  feel comfortable and safe with being all aspects of themselves, exploring their individual ways of growing and trying-on new ways of being.

Because what works for one person in therapy may not work for another, it is my experience that therapy is most helpful when client and therapist collaborate to craft therapy sessions that suit their individual needs and learning styles. Working together to learn what helps YOU to grow is key. Many psychotherapists are only trained in one or two modalities, which does not take into account different learning styles or a person’s unique needs. I am trained in a variety of diverse approaches for growth and healing and therefore bring a sufficient toolbag to my work. So, with some clients  I do only art therapy because this is the modality that best suits that individual.  With others, perhaps it is verbal therapy or  Hakomi that is the best fit. You and I can find the best method for you!

My diverse base of experience and knowledge comes from a foundation in Transpersonal Psychology, which  means many things and I'd be happy to talk to you more about it.  Most importantly, it means that I hold a strength-based and non-pathological approach to people and their challenges.  For example, I believe in the power of helping you to unearth or cultivate your strengths (even the ones you didn’t know you have) in order to help you meet your challenges. And, I will never judge your situation or challenges. Just as we have a night sky and daytime, we humans also have light and darkness.  Therefore, I don’t see my clients as problems,  a collection of wounds, or a cluster of diagnosis.' Rather, I see problems and issues as obstacles to your inborn strengths and innate wisdom. Perhaps your challenges once served a helpful purpose in your life but now need to be integrated elsewhere, which is part of the reason they are screaming out. Let’s find the ways for those things to become integrated or released.

While not every modality is right for everyone, some of the modalities that I use are:

Hakomi

I am a Certified Hakomi Therapist (CHT). Hakomi is an experiential, gentle, mindfulness-based, body-centered therapy that through a process of “assisted self-discovery” can help you to slow down the noise in your mind in order to access the “felt sense” of what is happening inside of you in the present moment. Through loving presence and gently guiding/ following you into the wisdom that occurs in your body when the noise is turned down, I can help you to safely access images, sensations, feelings, or memories that contribute to what we call your core material; the beliefs, habits and physical ways of being that live right under our awareness and greatly shape much of who we are in the world.  Through the non-judgmental awareness of mindfulness, the Hakomi method can help bring these core experience into awareness so that you can fill in the missing pieces, integrate new ways of being into your immediate experience and live more fully as your truest self in your world.  As both a client and practitioner of Hakomi, I believe it to be an incredibly effective and beautiful form of  therapy.

Art Therapy

As a Registered and Board Certified Art Therapist I believe very much in the ways that line, shape, color, texture and the freedom in the creative process can be a language of expression both for people who are familiar with art and for those who have not picked-up an art supply in many years. Sometimes making art in and of itself is the healing. Other times, it is about specific art projects and materials that will help you move forward. Art, like words is a language and is an effective and satisfying way to express where words cannot and to release emotions in a non-threatening way.  Additionally, making art is often very enjoyable on multiple levels from the sensory experience to learning or becoming proficient in working with a variety of art materials and completing meaningful art projects.

Somatic Art Therapy/Embodied Creativity

 I blend the wisdom and healing inherent in Hakomi and Art Therapy into a therapeutic format that I call "Somatic Art Therapy" or "Embodied Creativity.” This approach combines aspects of Hakomi and the ability to study and learn from the rich images that come to us when we are in a state of mindfulness with engagement in the creative process of artmaking. This innovative practice continually results in deep, profound and gratifying healing for my clients.

Shamanic Therapy and or Shamanic Healing Sessions

I have professionally and personally trained in the practices of Core Shamanism since 2005 and I have an active shamanic journeying practice in my own life. I believe that all people, regardless of one's belief systems, have unseen benevolent "helping spirits" and "guides" that are with us at all times. Consider this: When we sit on the beach and look out at the sea, we may only see a few things; a bird fly by, a dolphin, a boat, etc, but underneath that sea is an entire world happening that we cannot see with our eyes from the beach. Similarly, there is an entire world of the unseen that exists and is available to us as we move through these daily lives. I am able to contact and work with those unseen realms on your behalf. How might this look in a session? Several ways! First, I can bring shamanic work into our therapy sessions through facilitated and guided shamanic work where I can assist you to actively engage with your helping spirits and/or guides  in order to receive wisdom and healing that can be applied in your life. Additionally, I offer shamanic healing sessions where you as a client, receive a healing. This may involve the removal of energetic or physical patterns/templates that we've all accumulated along the way and are not helpful in your life. Shamanically, we call this this process of removal "extraction." As well, there may be a need for you to have a vital part of you that was lost at some point in your life due to some kind of trauma, returned or restored. This is called a "Soul Retrieval" and I am able to do these for you as well. Shamanic sessions are at least an hour and a half and up to two hours. I also offer art experiences following a session which is a deeply anchoring way to integrate the deep work. In sum, shamanic work is a powerful means for you to receive healing, guidance and a restoring of your life energy; sometimes on a very subtle level of your soul. Sounds "woo-woo?" Talk to me! Shamanic work is one of the oldest methods of healing found in all cultures around the world. It's simply that within our western minds, it is unfamiliar. I am so happy to be able to bring my way of working with shamanism to my clients.

Dagara Cowry Shell Divination Sessions

Having been blessed to have studied for 25 years with my now ancestors of spirit, Elder Sobonfu Some and Elder Malidoma Some from the Dagara tribe in Burkino Faso, W. Africa, I am fortunate to have been taught the art of Cowry Shell Divination from this lineage. Cowry Shell Divination sessions forge a direct relationship between you and your ancestors of blood and spirit to assist in answering questions you  have about your life. Through your engaging with the cowry shells and many other symbolic objects that lay on my divination cloth, a spread of truth and guidance will be provided for you to help you navigate your life questions. I believe that these sessions offer a wonderful opportunity for guidance as well as introducing many to the concept and practice of engaging with our ancestors; something that has been lost for many westerners.  Sessions are one hour in length and I donate a portion of each session to support the legacy of Elder Malidoma Some's work.

Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)

Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic medicine that has gained rightful notoriety as a significant game-changer when used in low doses as a (legal) psychedelic for various mental health challenges and spiritual development and growth. As a trained ketamine assisted psychotherapist through PRATI (Psychedelic Research and Training Institute), https://pratigroup.org/ I  have been offering ketamine assisted psychotherapy since 2020. I work with both clients in my practice as well as clients who have another therapist and are looking to do a series of KAP with me.  I am honored to be a contract therapist for Delos Psychiatry in Boulder  https://delospsych.com/ where clients have the opportunity to experience IM (intramuscular) ketamine sessions with me as your ketamine therapist. Our work together with ketamine will no doubt be profound, deep and complete with a very attuned, wrap-around and integrative approach to your healing through this amazing, legal psychedelic medicine that I have seen change lives. We begin with a meet and greet preparation session, followed by a series of two hour long ketamine sessions and deeply important integration sessions. In addition to IM, I also work with Psychiatrists who can prescribe the oral lozenges, called troches and we can work together in this way as well. I believe in ketamine so very much and LOVE doing this work.

Somatic Experiencing

I have completed both the Beginning and Intermediate training in Somatic Experiencing, or "S.E." www.traumahealing.org
Somatic Experiencing is a very powerful and gentle body-centered modality for working with trauma. While the word "trauma" is quite loaded with meaning, the truth is, we ALL have experienced some sort of trauma, as trauma is a basic facet of being human. Trauma is what happens when ANY intense life event does not get released through the body/nervous system and psyche. Peter Levine, the founder of S.E. studied that animals in the wild rarely hold onto trauma in their body, despite the regularity of life-threats, whereas we humans seem to store these patterns in our bodies and minds. SE helps a person to gently release these traumas through working with the resilience and wisdom of the body and learning to regulate one's nervous system.

Movement and your body

As is the language of art, so is movement a language. We speak volumes with our bodies whether through outward expression like dance or through more subtle cues like the way we hold our postures.  Some are comfortable with movement as a form of expression and therefore, our work is very based in this form of therapy. For others, movement work may be much more subtle as we invite inquiry and curiousity into habitual and non-habitual, subtle and obvious and conscious/unconscious ways that your body speaks.

Brainspotting

Brainspotting is an innovative method that works by identifying, processing and releasing core neuro-physiological sources of emotional/body pain, trauma, dissociation and other "stuck" challenging symptoms. It can also be used to deepen and anchor resources and strengths.   It is the next generation of brain-based therapy beyond  EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing). Brainspotting identifies and works with  eye positions that correspond with the issue of disturbance/trauma,  or strength and resource in tandem with listening to music/sounds that bi-laterally stimulate both the right and left hemispheres of the brain.

PACT (Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy)

I have completed one year of training for PACT. PACT is a powerful and very effective therapy model for couples developed by Dr. Stan Tatkin, www.stantatkin.com. Dr. Tatkin wrote the books "Wired for Love" and "Love and War in Intimate Relationships."  PACT's  lively model for working with couples emphasizes developmental neuroscience, arousal regulation and attachment theory. What this means, is that the PACT model can help couples and individuals understand how the others' brain works and therefore how we react in relationships. It looks at how we bond (or don't) in relationships based on our early experiences with our primary caregivers and how those patterns affect our current relationships.

Gestalt

Gestalt is an expressive form of therapy that explores how you make contact with the world and create blocks to this contact. It invites full expression through the body, the voice or art of what is true in the present moment through a variety of expressive techniques. Gestalt helps you to see how you can take personal responsibility for areas in your life that are not working and helps you to see how you can change that.

Mindfulness Practices

I embrace what I call a contemplative, mindfulness approach in working with people. This may mean that I teach you mindfulness-based practices and meditation techniques, lead you in meditations, guided imagery, muscle relaxation, breathing techniques, somatic awareness or suggest books and other resources along these lines that we can integrate into our work together. I firmly believe that cultivating awareness of our patterns and limiting beliefs is the gateway toward freedom because upon having awareness, you can then make conscious choices about where to place your focus of attention. This is the essence of mindfulness. Mindfulness practices can help slow-down the noise of your mind so that you can feel and hear what is happening inside and experience more spaciousness, well-being and freedom in your life.

Dreamwork

I believe that our dreams, as Carl Jung said, “are the royal road to the unconscious.” Because dreams are rich in  imagery, I introduce techniques such as art, journaling, active imagination, and dream-dialoguing  to help you uncover the meaning and wisdom in your dreams.

Neuropsychology

An official “brain-geek” I love learning about the brain and helping my clients understand some of what is happening for us during mental and emotional states such as in trauma or when we are feeling flooded with strong emotions.  I am fascinated and delighted by the ways in which various therapeutic techniques and mindfulness-based practices can change neural pathways in our brain (neuroplasticity) for the better so that we can  live more fulfilling lives and be free from habitual patterning.

In essence, my eclectic model of  therapy draws strands from many theories and maps and places your unique needs and personality at the center.  While holding a transpersonal context, I also use techniques and wisdom from person/client-centered psychology, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), Jungian psychology, psychosynthesis,  depth psychology,  existential psychology,  social justice psychology, multicultural frameworks,  systems theory, the enneagram, the s/hero's journey and more.  I am dedicated to continually augmenting my training in order to meet the needs of my clients. Feel free to ask me about any of the above modalities!

Contact me at 720.317.4647 or at merryl@merrylrothaus.com