Psychotherapy in
California and
The San Francisco Bay Area
Consulting Worldwide
Zoom • Phone
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The modalities I use are especially effective for your awesome dyslexic processing style:
Mindfulness
Mindfulness, or awareness, is a friendly attitude that welcomes all of your experience. When we welcome everything, the treasuresandthe challenges, the mind calms down. It’s like one of those mandalas that include the angels and the demons, the lotus and the mud. The act of awareness (which I’ll teach you) actually calms the mind. Awareness in itself shifts brain function away from fight-flight-freeze neural circuits where new beliefs can’t arise, and into the more right-brained, creative parts of brain functioning, where you excel.
Bringing in the Right Brain
The right brain is connected to the body, feelings, and creativity. The left brain is for discerning the differences between things and collecting information. It amasses information, but nothing new arises from the left brain—there are no answers there! It is from the right brain, which excels at making new connections, at creativity and metaphor, that answers and new beliefs arise. Have you ever been stuck in the gerbil wheel of trying to figure something out, or being beset by dark feelings? Then when you have a shower and the hot water is massaging your neck in just the right place you have that Ah Ha! moment and the answer comes easily, or the difficult emotions lighten. That is the right brain in action. Dyslexics are naturally more right brained, so benefit from somatic (or experiential) right-brained therapeutic orientations that draw on the right brain’s strengths to balance out the entire brain. Together we’ll harness your natural gifts to help you reclaim you!
Somatic Psychotherapy
Somatic psychotherapy is based on current neuroscience, decades of research, the lenses of a number of approaches, and age-old wisdom practices. It is the felt sense “Ah Ha!” moments that really bring change and allow you to be more fully you. I teach you from the very first session how to have the Ah Ha! And since that’s in alignment with some of your great dyslexic gifts, the somatic work I offer effectively helps you take with you what you’ve learned so you can be more fully yourself between sessions and build on it.
Parts Work, Psychodrama and Experiential Psychotherapy
Parts Work is an experiential way for you on a gut and heart level to really understand the difference between your True Self and your Parts. Your “Parts” are those selves you slip into that have those limiting beliefs. They are the “security team” you “hired” to help protect you or to make sense of a brutal world, but they can become your autopilot, and their “software” is sadly outdated. The Parts Work I offer is based on Hakomi and Re-Creation of the Self. It’s similar to our close relative, Dick Schwartz’ Internal Family Systems (or IFS).
Psychodrama offers creative, moving, fun and very potent techniques to express the unexpressed to family, teachers and others who gave you error messages. It is a powerful way to break the trance and claim your truth. Psychodrama is also one of the safe ways I offer to help you express grief in ways you may never have had the opportunity to do before, including with people who have died or whom it may not be possible to actually speak with.
Experiential Psychotherapy uses a variety of techniques such as Parts Work, Psychodrama, role play, creative expression and drawing, music and guided imagery to transform old patterns into a new grounded sense of self.
Neuroscience, Somatics and Resolving Trauma
An Effective Healing Palette Bessel van der Kolk, one of the leading experts on resolving trauma, cites Somatic Work, Parts Work, Psychodrama, Sensorimotor Trauma Work and EMDR in his list of the most effective ways to resolve trauma. In order for people to change they have to have a felt sense of safety in their body and a felt sense of nourishing, expanded beliefs about the self. No way around this, can’t intellectually know it, got to have the Ah Ha! With these modalities, you learn how to have the Ah Ha! in each session. They bring the whole brain online and engender healing. I have many years’ experience in all of these modalities and I’m excited to introduce them to you.
CBT, a note*
*A few words about CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). CBT is only one of many modalities used to help clients shift belief systems. How it is traditionally employed is as a very left brain approach. You may know rationally, ie. with your left brain, that you’re intelligent, okay and loveable—but simply recognizing this or telling yourself this doesn’t affect your deeper emotional nature which is still imprisoned. To know something isn’t to live something. CBT as it has been traditionally used isn’t as effective as more somatically-focused, right brain approaches, especially for dyslexics. Additionally, dyslexic processing is more right brained and you will benefit more from therapeutic modalities that use right-brained, creative, visual and kinesthetic techniques. The somatic work I offer takes the best of CBT and offers it in a highly useable somatic form as one of the many tools in our large palette.
Consulting for Professionals Working with Dyslexic Clients
My focus as a consultant is threefold:
- I help psychotherapists, counselors, coaches, mentors, educators, employers, parents and spouses to understand the depth of trauma that a dyslexic child or adult has been subjected to and how to best support their gifts and talents as they overcome their challenges.
- I can assist in evaluating psychotherapists in your geographical area to find an appropriate psychotherapist who will understand and meet the needs of the dyslexic in your life.
- I am a consultant for psychotherapists and counselors to help them understand how to work effectively with dyslexics. Dyslexics have often experienced profound trauma and shame, and need to see a professional who understands how to recognize and work with profound trauma, shame, and the reclaiming of their positive self esteem.
Contact Me
Phone: 415/668-5130
Contact Form: kathleendunbar.net/contact
Web—Learn More About My Offerings In-Depth On My Website: kathleendunbar.net
Email: kathleen@kathleendunbar.net
The Modalities I Offer
I offer an abundance of modalities which are very helpful for dyslexics. You can find a complete, in-depth list and more info at this links:
Kathleen Dunbar Approaches
Kathleen Dunbar Somatics
- Attachment Therapy
- Experiential Psychotherapy
- Grief Work
- Hakomi Mindfulness Centered Psychotherapy—I’m a Certified Hakomi Therapist
- Mindfulness Practices
- Neuroscience Approaches
- Part Work
- Psychodrama
- Psychotherapy-Informed Tablework
- Somatic Psychotherapy and Right Brained Awareness
- Trauma Resolution and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
- Visualization, Guided Imagery and Meditation Approaches