The choice to enter therapy often comes after some thought and consideration. Thinking about change and taking action to find support take courage. Whether a difficult life event has occurred, or over time you have wanted to improve certain areas of your life, even coming to visit a website is a step along the way. Dr. Minten works with this natural process of change - how you think, what you feel, and what will assist you in taking the next steps toward health. Compassion, empathy, respect, and genuineness are cornerstones Dr. Minten uses to forming connection that will be the platform from which changes can be made. Our general orientation is Existential, which means we focus on each person's lived experience with little theoretical "overlay" and we attend to each person's unique experience of life including emotions, a sense of purpose and meaning, and living life fully with less regret. Other modalities below supplement this foundational perspective.
"EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Repeated studies show that by using EMDR therapy people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference. It is widely assumed that severe emotional pain requires a long time to heal. EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma. When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, it festers and causes pain. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. Using the detailed protocols and procedures learned in EMDR therapy training sessions, clinicians help clients activate their natural healing processes." (https://www.emdr.com/what-is-emdr/, 3/24/2023)
Whatever the internal processes during MI [Motivational Interviewing] that inspire change and strengthen commitment, they surely involve the whole brain including our capacity for love, hope, interest, compassion, and joy. - William R. Miller,
MINT Bulletin, 2009, Vol. 15 No. 1
Mary uses Motivational Interviewing in her work with individuals, couples, and families to assist with behavior changes, to help resolve ambivalence, and to work through challenges that arise in the course of the change process. Motivational Interviewing is both centered on the client and directed toward change, assisting people in the change process by building on and using each person’s strengths, values, dreams, and goals. Motivational Interviewing is fundamentally respectful, collaborative, affirming of each person’s unique strengths and abilities.
While it is not at all incompatible with giving advice or teaching new skills, a motivational interviewing method places its main bets on the person’s own resourcefulness. The overall view is that confidence (like the importance aspect of motivation for change) is not something to be imposed but, rather, is evoked from the person, literally called (voiced) forth in the person’s own words and ideas… finding hope and confidence for change is a collaborative process in which the counselor is privileged to participate. - William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick, Motivational Interviewing, 2nd edition.
Everyone has people in their lives that are gay, lesbian or transgender or bisexual. They may not want to admit it, but I guarantee they know somebody. - Billie Jean King
Managing coming out, intern and external homophobia, transphobia, and cultural heterosexism are challenging tasks. Families can become disconnected through shame, misunderstanding, and painful beliefs. Navigating parenting, keeping committed partnerships strong and healthy, exploring gender diversity, making gender transitions, maintaining hope and balance in one's life are challenging tasks in a world where acceptance and equality remain illusive. Values related to human diversity are rapidly deteriorating.
Therapeutic assistance can be considerably valuable in helping families and couples find their way through these waters. Mary works with individuals, couples, and families to meet the challenges LBGTIQIAP/GRSM (gender, romantic and sexual minorities) people face in today’s world.
Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away. - George Eliot, 1819-80
It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate.
