e-mail: nicolemdixon@createamindfullife.com 828-610-8228 call or text
About my work...
I believe the therapeutic relationship is based on equality. We both have to show up. I have tools and strategies that I can bring to the process, as well as my experience as a therapist which I hope you'll find helpful and empowering. And yet, I'm just as interested in what you bring to our meeting. I learn from every person that sits across from me. EVERY person. We are such a mixture of of our thoughts, beliefs, opinions, experiences, and personality! It is really the combination of our presence together that makes change possible. Not to sound corny or melodramatic, but I feel like it needs to be said: to go deeper is not for the faint of heart and it can be life changing, AND it takes courage. You don't have to do this alone. So let's say you're here, what might our work look like...
I use a variety of therapeutic approaches: Internal Family Systems (IFS),Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Rational Emotive Therapy, Psychodrama, Art therapy, and Experiential to name a few. If you have a particular approach you feel would be helpful, and I'm trained in it, I'm open to using it. I prefer to start our journey in an open minded manner, and see what feels right as we explore the terrain together. My approach is intuitive and eclectic, not one size fits all. I'm a fan of questioning, and use mindfulness often to gather awareness. I can be directive but typically feel that we are working together to find the path. Therapy is not a static process, so we may shift our approach as we need to in order to achieve our desired goals.
Why we might want to look backwards...to find a new path: Our ability to relate to others can bring us benefit or heartache depending on the day. It's not just about our romantic entanglements, its about our connection with our kids, our parents, siblings, friends, co-workers and bosses. It's even broader than that and can show up in the way we relate to strangers, and our world view. I believe that this can be mirrored and worked on in the therapeutic process. Often our ability to relate to others has its roots in our past experiences, so far back, in fact, we may not even have a conscious awareness of where it started. If its called for, I have used genograms, chronological timelines and story telling to help gain an understanding of current behaviors, belief systems, or defense mechanisms and how they relate to past events.
With my background in Neuro-psychology, I believe that there are a number of other modalities that can be incredibly helpful in traversing the work of healing trauma, managing anxiety and other mood related issues, as well as self-sabotaging behaviors. Brainspotting is one of the newest brain based interventions in the field, developed first in 2003 and being continuously improved as over 14,000 trained therapists in 30 countries around the world explore it's uses. Brain based therapies can often help clients have unique break throughs that were not available to them even after years of therapy using other types of therapy. Read more about Brainspotting HERE.
