Support that meets you where you are…
Rabbi Dr. Arielle addresses the human condition with great love and understanding. She is both aware of the worst of human suffering, while at the same time holding up a torch to light the way. Educated, culturally sensitive, and inclusive, she is an extraordinary listener—congruent and present in all ways possible—somatically, emotionally and spiritually. Even while going into the deep realm of the psyche with her, the effect tends to be uplifting. Rabbi Arielle especially understands the place of symbols and metaphors in healing. I trust her to earn your trust and to take you far into wellness.”
E HITCHCOCK SCOTT, PhD
EXPRESSIVE ARTS THERAPIST AND AUTHOR
FELLOW FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF TRAUMA AND DISSOCIATION
Getting Oriented
How can therapy help?
Human beings are wired for connection, so we naturally seek support during times that feel especially difficult, unfamiliar, or filled with hopeful potential. Early experiences of relationship shape dimensions of our identity, worldview, and resilience—beginning even in the womb. Yet overwhelming experiences can challenge our whole system and shake up long-held beliefs about ourselves and the world, leaving us disoriented and disillusioned. There are different ways to support your attuning to your inner wisdom. Our work together is based in honoring your body's wisdom, including your feelings, to enhance your access to your aliveness, your intuition, and your ability to flourish, in joy.
In our attuning to what is within, we may naturally find ourselves weaving elements of contemporary somatic modalities, traditional psychology, cutting-edge neuroscience, and ancient spirituality, in an empowering therapeutic experience that is tailored to support you but also arising organically from the intelligence within you and the way it directs us. Our purpose is to orient to you where you are and to honor your experience, to help you access your natural resiliency and your authentic sense of self, to nourish your felt sense of safety, vitality, intuition, confidence, and joy, so that you can heal, grow, thrive.
How does it work?
Many people feel that spirituality is an essential feature of their experience, and they seek me out in order to be in a field where theirs is welcome, even if it is messy in the moment. We integrate our grappling with or drawing from spiritual dimensions of human experience in the ways that feel natural and nourishing for you.
Many people seek me out because they find that therapy that depends too much on thinking and reasoning… leaves out the unspoken voice of the body, and they want to integrate their embodied experience, emotions included, somatically.
My expertise is in the integration of somatic modalities, spirituality, and traditional psychotherapy, so we can bring all of these into the room when we meet. Our work together is about supporting you in ways that feel ideal for you, integrating resources that enhance the meaning and value of this journey.
I am humbled to be able to share what I have learned from my inspiring mentors, leaders in the field of trauma healing who impart their insights and their caring as inspiration: Dr. Peter Levine whom I have assisted for years in his Somatic Experiencing master classes and with whom I feel a special kinship given related research in my family lineage; Dr. David Grand, originator of Brainspotting, Dr. Aline LaPierre, developer of Neuroaffective Touch; Laurel Parnell who reshaped EMDR, and Dr. Raja Selvam, whom I have assisted in trainings of Integral Somatic Psychology. Their ongoing mentorship and inspiration infuse my learning, practice, and teaching.
Therapeutic Modalities
in which I am trained and which I may draw from in our work together
SOMATIC EXPERIENCING®, NEUROAFFECTIVE TOUCH®
The Body-Mind Connection
Somatic Experiencing® is a way of resolving symptoms of stress, shock, and trauma that can accumulate in our bodies and nervous systems. A body-oriented therapeutic model, it supports gentle release and reintegration of energy bound up in the body, by facilitating completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body, the root cause of trauma symptoms. Notably, it does not require detailed retelling of traumatic memories. Somatic Experiencing® was developed by Dr. Peter Levine, whom I have had the honor of assisting in his teaching of master classes for a number of years.
NeuroAffective Touch® addresses attachment, emotional, and relational deficits that cannot be reached by verbal means alone by integrating contact as a vital therapeutic bridge to body-mind integration. By highlighting the importance of the body and emphasizing its equal importance to the mind, it invites conscious collaborative dialogue between body and mind. NeuroAffective Touch® was created by Dr. Aline LaPierre, clinician, author, teacher, and Vice President of the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy (USABP), with whom I have trained for years.
BRAINSPOTTING®,
ATTACHMENT- FOCUSED EMDR®
Eyes~Window to the Soul
Brainspotting® is a gentle, relational way of working with natural eye positions or “brainspots” which activate and access specific areas of the subcortical brain to allow for reprocessing and releasing of core neurophysiological reactions to trauma-related and other psychological experiences to quickly and effectively support healing and relief. The process is natural, following the cues that the brain provides through natural movement of one’s gaze, and yet facilitates profound shifts. Brainspotting was developed by Dr. David Grand, with whom I trained.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), developed by Francine Shapiro (a teacher of my teachers), is a psychotherapy method that uses bilateral sensory input such as tapping, sound, or eye movements, while we recall painful images in order to process memories until they no longer hold the same emotional charge. The idea is that when troubling memory fragments intrude into the present in nightmares or flashbacks, processing them allows us to integrate them and to hold them like other memories—less threatening and evoking less psychological arousal. New associations develop new concepts of self. Dr. Laurel Parnell created Attachment-Focused EMDR, a modified version that focuses on attachments formed in childhood.
INTEGRAL SOMATIC PSYCHOLOGY, SPIRITUAL COUNSELING
Embodying Our Emotions
Integral Somatic Psychology® seeks to enhance our capacity for emotional experience in our body. By finding, supporting, and integrating physical, energetic, and other resources that arise spontaneously, it facilitates deeper healing in the body and psyche and to improve thoughts, feelings, and actions. Spiritual traditions provide symbols, archetypes, and frameworks of meaning that can be powerful resources in supporting expansion of one’s capacity to process, re-imagine, and integrate their experience. Integrated Somatic Psychology® was developed by Raja Selvam, with whom I studied and from whom I learned a great deal about the Vedic traditions and chakras and whom I have had the honor of assisting in his teaching of this technique.
Spiritual counseling draws on practices of mindfulness, ritual, and specific cultural traditions as well as from text and wisdom traditions to support a framework of meaning in which to process and make meaning of one’s experience.
TRADITIONAL PSYCHOTHERAPY,
GROUP FACILITATION
Finding the Words…
Psychotherapy can be a powerful experience. In it, the connection between client and practitioner becomes a resource for healing and growth. Mindfully exploring the present moment or enhances awareness, considering the past enhances insights about current relational patterns and symptoms and the ways these may be both adaptive and maladaptive, offers deeper understanding of emotions and underlying needs, and provides a safe space to unpack one’s relationship to oneself, to develop self-compassion and compassion for others, and to find ways to live a more meaningful and fulfilling life.
People describe my approach as: Culturally Sensitive, Existential, Feminist, Person-Centered, Relational, Strength-Based, Trauma-Informed, Humanistic, and Intersubjective. I am animated by a “growth” mindset. My role is as a supportive partner, to serve as a kind of doula to your intuition finding ways to emerge, to express itself, to grow in ways that enrich your life beyond our time together.