Danielle K. Price, LMFT
Depth Psychotherapy and Jungian Analysis
In-person and Teletherapy Appointments
23550 Lyons Ave. Ste. 211
Fax: (661) 235-7012
Specializing in Psychotherapy from a Depth Perspective
Psychotherapy from a Depth Perspective
I take a depth perspective in working with clients, specifically Jungian. This means that psychotherapy is individualized to your needs, establishing a collaborative working alliance is of the utmost importance, and the purpose of our work together is to increase your understanding and awareness of yourself. We focus on uncovering the underlying origins of issues rather than getting caught up with the resultant manifestation of symptoms on the surface. We shine a light on the unconscious. We use a variety of techniques to accomplish this, including dream analysis, journaling, art therapy, exploration of past and present experiences and relationships, and subjective awareness and integration. Through this process, you will have a better understanding of yourself, not just the self you have always believed yourself to be or the self you have presented to the world, but your authentic, balanced, and whole self. The path of depth psychotherapy is a path to wholeness.
Therapeutic Alliance
A strong relationship with your therapist is important on your journey to wholeness. Entering therapy is tantamount to making a major commitment to yourself. In making this commitment, it is important to ensure you select a therapist to work with who is a good fit for you. Therapy can be uncomfortable at times. It can bring up strong negative emotions and it shines a light on parts of ourselves and our experiences that we would rather not focus on or acknowledge. It is important to have a strong relationship with your therapist who is serving as your guide and witness on your journey of self discovery. You want to feel comfortable to be open and share and feel supported throughout the process. While establishing a strong relationship cannot be expected to happen right away, you should get a good vibe or sense a feeling of connection from the start. And, if you do not have this experience, it is better to try to meet with a different therapist than to give up on therapy altogether. I offer a free 15 minute phone consultation to anyone who is curious about the process of depth therapy or wants to start their therapeutic journey and is interested to see if we may be a good fit in working together. On the call, we will review what questions and concerns you have, what you are looking for in a therapist and a treatment modality, and how you are looking to grow through this process.
Maladaptive Coping Skills and Compulsive Behaviors
We all experience painful emotions throughout our lives in response to loss, rejection, failure, and trauma. At the same time, we are incredibly resilient and develop ways to move past our pain, put one foot in front of the other, and continue meeting our daily obligations and being there for the ones we love. When we have not healed our emotional wounds or connected with the collective pain of what it is to be human, these wounds fester, and we develop ways of avoiding our pain. We deny it, ignore it, stuff it down, or numb ourselves to its existence in the fear that the pain would consume or overwhelm us if it were acknowledged. Over time, this build-up of unprocessed emotion leads to the development of neuroses and compulsive and self-destructive behaviors. You may notice that you are eating or drinking too much, watching mindless TV for hours on end every night, compulsively checking your social media, on edge and unable to fall asleep at night, noticing repeated patterns of problems in relationships, feeling a constant sense of dread, or feeling depressed or completely exhausted. Maladaptive coping skills and compulsive behaviors may have developed for good reason, and may have helped you to move past your painful life experience or manage your stress. Today, however, these maladaptive coping skills and compulsive behaviors may no longer be serving a positive role in your life. You have outgrown them and they are covering up the real work of the psyche that needs to be attended to. Deciding to remove them, oftentimes, is a lot more difficult than you would expect. These patterns of behavior are deeply ingrained and may have served as your go to coping mechanisms for a long time. With the support of psychotherapy, you start to peel back the layers and distance yourself from maladaptive coping skills so that you can start to shine a lot on what is underneath.
Facing Your Emotions and Beliefs
Connecting to our emotional wounds takes courage. Consciously choosing to acknowledge and sit with your own pain can be an intense process, but it is a necessary step on your path to wholeness. Through the psychotherapy process, you experience your feelings, including feelings that may have been buried for a long time, or feelings that were never processed at the time of a traumatic event. The most efficient and effective way out is through. Therapy provides a supportive space for the processing of your emotions. Oftentimes, to understand our own experiences we have created beliefs about why things have happened to us in an attempt to process our experience and make sense out of our lives. These very beliefs may not be accurate and may be the cause of a lot of your suffering now. You may believe you are not enough, that you are an imposter in your relationships or job, that you do not have value, or that you are not deserving of good things. As part of the therapeutic process, we uncover and confront your core beliefs, including how they originated and how they are impacting your life today. Along with letting go of false beliefs you hold about yourself, therapy facilitates your letting go of built up resentments and beliefs about others who have wronged you. Coming to a place of acceptance of what has happened to you and getting to the root of your false beliefs about yourself ensures that your life is no longer being directed by these things and can instead encompass your experience of yourself as whole, unique, and eternal.
Honoring Your Subjective Experience
Throughout the therapeutic process, you learn to let go of the limited version of yourself that you have thought is the real you all along. Part of getting in touch with our own wholeness involves honoring our subjective experience. It is important for us to listen to the messages being communicated by our own bodies. Our bodies have a wisdom that we so easily ignore. They carry the burden of our unexpressed emotions and pain. Part of the therapeutic process involves learning how to receive these messages, connect with our own sense of intuition, and trust ourselves. Our increased awareness of our beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations leads us to a richer and more fulfilling life. Our self awareness not only benefits ourselves, but the people around us and the people we are in relationships with. We understand our patterns, their root causes, and we are more aware of our impact on others, so our relationships become more authentic. Through psychotherapy, you are also working on developing your relationship with yourself and strengthening your capacity for self-compassion. Developing self-compassion is an essential tool in the process of self discovery and walking on the path to wholeness.
Seeking Balance and Wholeness
Through the psychotherapy process, you gain a lot of knowledge about your Self and become more aware. Sometimes the quickest way to get in touch with your unconscious and the very characteristics of yourself that have been repressed is by recognizing the traits in others that bother us the most. People that trigger us the most have a lot to teach us about ourselves. Our path to wholeness necessarily requires us to acknowledge and accept these disowned parts of ourselves, parts that may not neatly fit into our defined sense of self. The depth therapy process requires you to be curious, curious about who you are and how you came to be. It is a journey to self discovery. Only through a deep understanding and insight into ourselves can we maintain lasting change. As you connect with your authentic, whole self, and as your unconscious becomes more conscious, you can create a life around you that is more balanced, rooted in your values, and enriching to your soul. As C. J. Jung put it, "Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."