Counseling

The branching tree with roots which you see above is a reminder of both the potential for growth and the need to seek renewal from our deep roots. Below the surface is a realm filled with history and rich nurturance. How deeply you want to dig is always up to you, but I will encourage you to go as deeply as suits you, as deeply as you need to go.

The guiding principles of our work together will be curiosity and trust. By staying curious we avoid leaping to conclusions and you can learn to keep the old stories about your problems from limiting your new understanding. Trust includes both being vulnerable and the essential element of hope.

Let’s begin the conversation soon. Leave a message for me at the phone number above, or via email at bob@sebastopoltherapy.com. I will reply and we can schedule a time for a brief phone interview which will help you to decide if the method which I offer is one that holds promise for the help you seek.

Couples Counseling
Life Review
Somatics/Expressive Arts
Spiritual Challenges
Co-Parenting

Relationships/Couples Work

Relationships offer the most difficult, the most challenging and the most rewarding work that we can do in life. Relationships bring excitement, creativity and joy. In relationship there is the real possibility of healing old wounds from early in our lives. The price of relationship is vulnerability.

When relationships are vulnerable they carry equal potential for joy and suffering. Nowhere do we become more easily blinded to finding our own way. The very person we want to turn to for help is seen as an enemy; we hardly know how to help ourselves. Our natural urge for self-protection cuts us off from the very heart of our relationship. Untangling these sometimes painful issues is delicate work which I approach with care and respect.

Life Review

When we say “life review” we often think of something to be engaged in late in life, but this is not the only time that life review can be fruitful. There may be experiences which have not been “digested” properly. The past cannot be undone, or redone, but it can be assimilated in new ways. Engaging in that kind of re-assessment is brave and noble work. It can bring peace where there was pain,
There are many moments in one’s life when it is useful to ask, Is this the life I intend for myself?

Somatics and Expressive Arts

Somatics. Fancy word. It means the body. If the idea of just sitting on a couch and talking makes your skin crawl (literally, perhaps) then there are other ways that you can explore who you are, where you want to go, and what stands in your way.

Spiritual Challenge

I had a teacher in the 1970s who was asked a question about psychological methods of working on oneself, as distinct from the methods thought of as spiritual or religious. His answer was that psychological methods were too slow and the spiritual path was more direct.

There is truth to that, but this is not to say that psychological inquiry is not sometimes required. Some people have unfinished business on the level of personality that needs to completed before they will find the capacity to fulfill their spiritual aims. I have also found that many people carry a sense of guilt regarding the spiritual goals which they set themselves. There is a tendency towards what is sometimes called “the spiritual bypass” – an inauthentic belief that one has already attained a certain level of spiritual awakening, and that therefore issues of the day-to-day world ought not to be problems.

Together we can look at the place in you where the spiritual intersects with the personal. Whatever spiritual or religious path is important to you, I can help you to feel more at ease and help you find the way back to the sense that you are on the path that suits you and are able to travel that path with confidence.

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Co-Parenting

When couples break up they most often vow that the issues which have separated them will not interfere with their mutual desire for their children to thrive. Obtaining that goal can be a challenge. If your desire to be great parents is not being fulfilled, I can help. See special ideas for the Holidays and Co-Parenting.

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