How I Work

As a Counselling Therapist.
As a Body Oriented Therapist.
What happens in a body therapy session?
Working with babies.
Working with shock trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) due to a car accident.

As a Counselling Therapist

Counselling with me will help you find ways to cope with everyday challenges in your life. In my office you will find a safe place and much encouragement to explore the beliefs and values you currently hold in regard to your problem.

You will have the opportunity to learn about your defenses (those automatic reactions you use when confronted) and how others perceive them. Through our work together, you will gain insight and understanding, and make the necessary changes you want in order to feel happier and improve your overall quality of life.

Getting to know one's self intimately and making the commitment to continue to grow throughout life is a strong personal value of mine. I believe it is not possible to grow and develop in isolation and we can only really get to know ourselves when we are in relationship with others. The counselling relationship is an ideal place to learn how to be in relationships in a satisfying way.

I ensure strong client-counsellor boundaries by maintaining my role as your therapist and providing non-judgmental acceptance of wherever you find yourself. I know from personal experience how vulnerable you can feel when letting go of the familiar and trying out new ways of being and how important it is to feel safe and supported. Thus, it is my commitment to you, to respect your feelings and your unique process regardless of where you may be.

As a Body Oriented Therapist

My post graduate training is in Body Psychotherapy and this influences the way I work in the therapy room. Body Psychotherapy has developed over the last seventy years from studies in various fields including animal behaviour, human developmental psychology, neurophysiology, and perinatal studies. One of the schools in this large field is the Bodynamic System. I have completed over five years of post-graduate studies in this method and am a Certified Trainer with experience teaching in Denmark as well as locally.

As a Bodynamic Therapist I have in-depth training in developmental psychology; the study of how our personality develops due to the dilemmas we encounter as we balance who we are in essence with whom our families/culture/teachers/peers want us to be.

As we learn to fine-tune the struggle of holding on to our personal dignity versus letting it go - just enough to still feel connected and loved by others - we develop our defense patterns - the ways we learn to cope.

Even though some of your favourite defense patterns may no longer serve your best interest, it is important to love them. Don't blame yourself for using them but be open to making a different choice and changing them for something you now see as being more effective. You created them when you needed them and they served you very well as a way to protect yourself and keep you safe - but as you grow up, what served you as a child no longer serves you as an adult and can actually get in the way of having a happy life. Times change and now you need to make different choices. For instance, throwing a temper tantrum may have worked well to get your mother's attention in the supermarket when you were 3, but it won't get you too far with the boss!

Many of us become very adept at using words as a protection - even to the point of tricking ourselves - and we become very attached to what we think about something. Including bodywork in a therapy session provides a powerful tool to help us use another language to learn a little more about our self in a certain situation.

What happens in a body therapy session?

As the session opens I will listen as you tell me about your problem. I will be aware of your posture and body language and from time to time ask you to notice what is happening for you on the inside. Can you sense your feet? How do you sense your belly or shoulders? For example you may be telling me about a recent fight with your partner and I notice that your shoulders are hunched up toward your ears. As you sense your shoulders you realize the whole relationship is becoming too complicated and you question whether it is time to break it off.

We may then experiment with bodywork. I'll press down on top of your shoulders and encourage you to activate the tense muscles against my pressure - to sense how you are 'carrying this burden'. I'll then encourage you to 'shrug it off', using varying degrees of resistance until you feel energized and successful.

We will then continue talking; helping you clarify your feelings and the changes you would like to see in the relationship. Finally we might do another exercise where I will place a string in a circle around you to serve as a boundary and you can practice telling your partner what is important for you. Sitting in a circle of string in this way gives you a powerful visual and felt experience of 'here I am'. It becomes easier to sense your individuality separate from your partner and understand how you may have compromised yourself in order to be in the relationship.

Working with babies

The Bodynamic System addresses development from the second trimester (3 months intra-uterine) through to age 12. In my work with infants it is such a pleasure to help the families learn about these early stages of development (called the Existence and Need Structures in the Bodynamic System) and build the strong foundation necessary for your baby's development of personal respect and healthy relationships from 'day one'.

When you bring your baby to me I will first want to know your story of your pregnancy and delivery and the concerns you have about your baby. This will help me understand the challenges and degree of stress you and your baby may have experienced before and during the birth.

I will then check out baby's movements and take note of any restrictions such as tightness in the muscles of the neck or a flat spot on the head. As I work, I will be talking; I will be welcoming your baby into this world and telling both of you what I am doing and why. I will continue using Paediatric Cranial Sacral techniques - a method of gentle bodywork especially developed for young infants to help them release any areas of tension they may have developed in the womb or during the birthing experience and gain the flexibility needed for healthy development.

It is possible that when I work on certain areas, such as the neck where the cord has been wrapped, your baby will let me know he is anxious or uncomfortable by crying. I will be paying strong attention to your baby's communication and will ask you to comfort him by holding or nursing until he settles. This is a standard counselling method used to decrease stress induced by trauma; when there is a stress response, the client - whether a baby or adult - is guided back into a state of relaxation and comfort before continuing their work. I work at baby's speed and within his comfort zone and I call this 'working on baby-time'. My primary intention always, is to help your baby move away from the memory of the stressful experience and toward a deep feeing of security here in his new environment.

I will then talk with you and help you resolve any problems or personal concerns you may have. These could include being anxious about being a good enough parent, concerns that you are struggling to bond with your baby, or difficulties in your relationship as a couple - often new parents have different ideas of how to raise a small child and this can be very stressful. It might become apparent that personal counselling sessions for you, without baby being present, could be of value.

Working with shock trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) due to a car accident.

The Bodynamic System has a strong model for working with shock and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for people of all ages.

Following a car accident the body's normal protective mechanism is to go into shock which typically resolves over a few weeks. However, it is not uncommon for some people to find their shock symptoms persist and intrude on their daily function; for example - disturbed sleep, flash backs, fear of driving, panic attacks, feeling very emotional, and having difficulty concentrating and making decisions. If these symptoms persist longer than three months then PTSD may be diagnosed by your doctor.

The impact from this car accident/trauma will ripple through all aspects of your life, similar to when a stone is dropped into a pond. For instance, you may find your ability to work is compromised, your relationships become difficult and your social/family life is interrupted. If you have experienced a previous traumatic incident in your life, such as another accident or abuse, which you have not fully resolved, you may find memories from then resurface now, complicating your life further and increasing your pain and suffering.

In shock, the body's hormone and nervous systems become unbalanced. In therapy you will learn why these imbalances cause your symptoms and ways to resolve them which will include

• learning how to relax and calm your nervous system
• regaining or building your support system (identifying your 'safe place' and those people in your life with whom you feel very safe and can lean on for support)
• working with the crisis of the accident - the ripples affecting your life
• working with the core of the shock - the accident itself

Eventually you will understand why this accident impacted your life so deeply, own a new tool kit of coping strategies, and heal your pain, be it emotional or physical.

Of course it is not possible to fully answer all your questions in these pages but I hope they have provided some insight to how I work.

For more information on my fees and when I am available to work with you and your issues of difficult life transitions, relationship problems, car accident trauma or baby wellness please visit My Services page.

I encourage you to call me to schedule a 15 minute no-charge appointment where we can talk further and see if I can help you with your problem.

I look forward to talking with you.

Barbara Picton B.S.R., M.Ed., RCC.
Registered Clinical Counsellor (# 842)

671 F Market Hill (False Creek) Vancouver BC  V5Z 4B5 (Tuesday and Wednesday)
201-2678 West Broadway, Vancouver BC  V6K 2G3 (Thursday)

Voice mail: 604.838.6048
Email: barbara@barbarapicton.com