my approach
My approach is rooted in the view that each one of us has the innate capacity to explore, release, and heal our deepest wounds, blockages, and traumas.
What is ‘Being_With?’
I call my practice ‘Being_With’ in reverence to the healing power of relationships. This includes my relationship with you, your relationship to yourself, and to the people close to you.
By “being with” e.g. skillfully relating to challenging emotions, thoughts, sensations, and reactive parts of ourselves and of others, we build tolerance, resilience, compassion, trust, and insight that propels growth.
How Does it Work?
“Being With” entails reconnecting with the neglected and buried parts of ourselves and learning how to attune to our own emotional needs with a quality of attention, empathy, and compassion that most of us have not experienced before.
My job is to walk with you on your journey, supporting you with warmth, curiosity, compassionate reflection, and evidence-based tools and frameworks, including Internal Family Systems, Somatic Experiencing, Psychodynamic, and Emotionally Focused Therapy.
The process of ‘Being_With’ promotes liberation from protective patterns that no longer serve us, more satisfying relationships, greater self-worth and esteem, and trust in our intuition or ‘inner voice.’
How ‘Being_With’ is Different
The work of Being_With is different from most traditional therapeutic models in that it integrates verbal expression with embodied awareness (Somatic Experience), and the Internal Family Systems Model.
My somatic approach is informed by research showing that maladaptive behavior, limiting thoughts, and emotional and physical pain arise in relation to memories and experiences that are embedded in the body [*].
The Internal Family Systems approach views our personalities as comprised of various protective and wounded parts that we can learn to relate to from a healing core of empathy and compassion. The IFS process is often remarkably vivid and powerful. For example, popular podcaster Tim Ferris participated in a brief IFS demonstration, after which he titled the episode “IFS, Psychedelic Experiences without Drugs.”
As we collaboratively use these models to tend to your emotions, sensations, thoughts, and behavioral patterns, you will activate innate nervous system responses and emotional releases that can be more effective and expedient than traditional therapy while fostering a sense of internal harmony.
The work of Being_With aims to increase three qualities essential for living a whole and vital life.
Presence—Your ability to be emotionally available, empathetic, and constructively responsive to yourself and to others. At times this may mean being more “open” to new challenges and situations that promote growth and greater awareness. Just as importantly, presence means having the ability to set emotional and physical boundaries with others, and to recognize the boundaries set by others.
Resilience—Your ability to tolerate and rebound from negative sensations, energy states, and emotions without acting out, dissociating, or relying on unhealthy coping strategies. Resilience arises innately as a product of increased awareness and energetic release. You will be able to consciously cultivate resilience, in the moment, through practices that activate your body’s self-regulating mechanisms.
Re-connection—The felt sense that you exist by virtue of your place within a vast web of interconnection, wherein the “I” that you identify with is always changing, is in fact part of a perpetual process of growth and becoming. While at the same time, you honor this body that holds you, and the unique qualities of mind through which your particular experience of life unfolds and interacts with the living world.
Sessions are offered remotely via video conferencing or in person at Liam’s private office in Venice, CA.
“The cure of the shadow is a problem of love…How far can our love extend to the broken and ruined parts of ourselves, the disgusting and perverse? How much charity and compassion have we for our own weakness and sickness?
The ego must learn to give way to ‘listen, ‘serve,’ and discover an ability to love even the least of these traits.”-James Hillman