Focusing-oriented Therapy: A Wholebody Approach
Awakening & unfolding of body wisdom for healing & restoring of life-spirit
Awakening & unfolding of body wisdom for healing & restoring of life-spirit
Is your life stuck, at a standstill, blocked? Are you at a crisis point? Do you often wish to feel more connected with your inner life, and have deeper, richer connections with others? Perhaps you have tried to alter certain habits or develop new patterns, but something seems to stop you from accomplishing or maintaining the changes. At this point of impasse, we can feel most disheartened. Although it may feel like the end, it is actually an opportunity for a new beginning. There is a source within all of us that can guide us forward. I specialize in helping people who are experiencing life-impasses, a dispirited condition in which life-energy stagnates and our desires for growth feel blocked. At this edge, we often feel confused, despairing, at a loss about what to do or how to proceed. I discovered that at the point of “not-knowing,” there is something in us that does know. I have developed Focusing-oriented therapy (FOT) as a wholebody approach, a simple, powerful process of accessing and unfolding Body Wisdom.
FOT awakens the body’s life-energy, bringing to awareness our patterns and inner reactions. As we sense these patterns, together we will learn how to contain their energies and feelings within the whole body. Through grounded containment, we can welcome and accept all aspects of ourselves just as they are. When places within us, the their patterns of living feel our caring, loving acceptance, they open to their own feelings, and awaken to their path of healing. Thus, in our safe and supportive space, we follow the body’s lead, trusting in its innate wisdom to show us the way, revealing the next steps on your journey of healing and transforming.
I can help you connect with and awaken your body’s natural life-force, the energy and vitality whose intelligence is the vehicle for growth and healing. Our body is always moving toward where it is wounded or blocked, as well as to where there is new life, fresh air and greater vitality. Symptoms develop when our awareness loses connection with the body’s living energy and spirit. When our awareness reconnects with the body, it reawakens this life-force, beginning a journey of recovering lost parts of ourselves and restoring our innate inner spirit.In addition to listening and reflecting what emerges from the body, we become active participants in the body’s life- inviting and permitting all of its life-energy to feel free to arise- and to learn how to embody and express what comes. The method of embodiment allows to more directly experience patterns, wounds, energies, feelings so they can waken further to their own right ways of living. The Wholebody approach harnesses the natal wisdom of the body to lead us back to restore aspects of your wholeness that have been lost, suppressed or wounded. The body knows how to heal itself- and I will be your companion, guide, support and encourager so that you can reconnect with your body’s inner feelings and recover its life-spirit.
I have been a psychotherapist in private practice for 35 years- helping hundreds of people work through difficult and entrenched patterns, and find their own right path in life. I believe that a good therapist should be open to learning through their own personal and professional experience. Thus, in addition to receiving training in many therapeutic models including: existential-humanistic therapies; psychoanalytic therapy; Focusing and Focusing oriented therapy; somatic therapies; shamanic healing practices; drama therapies- I have also done extensive research and writing on what I have discovered in my own work.
This has resulted in a continual evolution and expansion of how I work with clients When we bring accepting and sensitive awareness to the whole body and to whatever symptom, pattern, sensation is calling for attention, it awakens a healing energy, restoring the flow of spirit and life where it has been blocked or impaired. Often, when we are in the midst of a blockage or impasse, the body is showing something that indicates a potential direction or step needed to resolve the situation. or transform oneself.
In addition to my therapy practice, I lead workshops/retreats in the local San Francisco Bay Area, as well as throughout the United States and other countries. I also offer online WBF seminars/classes for personal growth and professional development. As a clinical supervisor and teacher, I support and train other therapists to learn this method of therapy. I have also written extensively on this work. I have been an Adjunct Faculty member at CIIS in San Francisco, in the Integral Counseling Program., as well as with JFK University in Antioch, CA. in the Somatic Psychology Department.
Practice Areas:
Counseling; Therapy; Addiction; Substance Abuse; Anger Management; Anxiety and Panic, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD); Body Image Issues; Caregiver Issues; Chronic Illness; Couples Therapy; Depression; Divorce; Eating Disorders; Grief and Loss; Life Transitions; Loneliness; Marriage & Family Therapy; Marriage Counseling; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder;
Via: In-person/ Online / Phone / Skype
Two Office Locations:
Primary Location:
922 Centro Way
Mill Valley, CA 94941
Additional Location:
526 Tennessee Street
Vallejo, CA 94590
Phone:
(707) 644-5421
Glenn Fleisch, Ph.D.,
Hours: Monday-Thursday, 10 am-8 pm
License: MFT #MFC 12608
Education/Training:
I have a B.S. degree from Brooklyn College (NY), an M.Ed. degree from Temple University (Philadelphia) and a Ph.D. degree (Clinical Psychology) from the Center for Psychological Studies (Albany/Berkeley, CA.).
I am a certified Focusing trainer and Coordinator with the Focusing Institute (New York) where I have been studying with various teachers for 16 years. Additional training has been in: Wholebody Focusing; psychoanalytic psychotherapy; existential psychotherapy; variety of somatic therapies; hypnotherapy; psychodrama; meditation/spiritual teachings. I also am very interested in research, philosophy, poetry and music.
Memberships
CAMFT (California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists; WAPCEPC (World Association of Person Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy); USABP (United States Association of Body-Centered Psychotherapy); Focusing Institute (Certified Trainer and Coordinator)