Dr. Friedman's Approach

Dr. Friedman's Practice | Dr. Friedman's Approach | Therapeutic Purposes | Core Therapeutic Orientation

As a seasoned clinician with experience working with adults, couples, families, adolescents and older children since 1977, my aim is to understand your challenges and collaborate in setting an achievable vision in the present. Licensed as a psychologist in California since 1987, my major focus is Presence-centered therapy.

I perceive people as multi-faceted bio-psycho-social-spiritual Beings ever adapting and evolving in the only time that exists—this invaluable present moment. The mind, body and world are all undivided expressions of all-encompassing, seamless, non-separate Consciousness.

My practice stands on three key elements. First is inhabiting this present moment and watching the mind from outside it to see what it is up now. Presence and witnessing help empower you to first see and then "buy out" of the mind's unworkable patterns.

Secondly, inquiry approaches (such as deconstructing beliefs and false identities) coupled with mind-body approaches (like EMDR, sensory awareness/focusing and taking in the good) greatly help desensitize root emotional charges associated with incomplete traumas and the survival decisions made that tend to drive unworkable emotional and behavioral patterns.

Third and core to this work is installing, building and developing strong internal resources that are immediately useable along with highly adaptive tools to better thrive in the world. Developing an enhanced capacity to hold, bear and tolerate strong emotions along with effective coping skills to powerfully assist this capacity are central to robust transformation.

My vision for our work is for clients to unlearn their learned limitations, have an emotionally satisfying and completing experience, and have the many positive, life-affirming outcomes of our work be sustaining. May this transformative work open you up to a full creative expression of who you truly are. Free the ego, and you are free. Pause without thinking; simply look and see for yourself.

• Presence-centered therapy is a conscious attuning to the richness of this present moment (sometimes called mindfulness or wakefulness) along with witnessing, that is, observing what the mind is up to now by looking from outside of it.
   
• Presence is all embracing, generously welcoming everything and everyone. Heartfelt gratitude and natural generosity beaming unconditional Love may well be the clearest indicators of aware Presence.
   
• When you bring a purity of pro-life intention coupled with a whole-bodied attention, this naturally expresses itself in a rich, resonant and welcoming Presence, like a timeless infinite embrace of the entire world moment by moment.

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane
by those who could not hear the music."
—Friedrich Nietzsche

The vision I bring to our work is a fundamental optimism in our capacity as human beings to adaptively change, grow and evolve. Our plasticity of attitude and behavior can allow us to be successful and thrive in the empirical world as well as inhabit, express and embody our authentic liberated self.

George Demont Otis     Lagunitas SRA

My practice as a Presence-centered psychologist focuses on stress, anxiety (panic, fears and social anxiety), depression, couple relationships, divorce, family dynamics, chronic pain and psycho-spiritual growth. I am committed in both word and daily practice to "awakening" and healing that is sustaining.

The emphasis is on developing, shaping and deepening strengths, extending self-responsibility and responsiveness, and accepting life and "what is" in a context or relaxed clarity, presence and equanimity. The vision offered goes beyond an "intellectual understanding" of one's life challenges, that is, breaking issues down into components and seeing how they fit together and operate in specific ways. My practice vision is to "stand under" a palpable experience of direct living, sensing and feeling another meaning of the word "understand."

Central to our enterprise is developing an authentic connection or therapeutic rapport and alliance that can serve as the therapeutic bedrock for all our work together. Each consultation is the opportunity to truly meet the client exactly where he or she is in this moment and give what is most adaptive and immediately useable.

A range of therapeutic approaches is drawn upon that all support "doing what works" and are individually tailored for each client. Being in the field of Psychology since 1977 and licensed in California as a psychologist since 1987, I draw upon therapeutic modalities of cognitive, cognitive-behavioral, psycho-dynamic and family systems approaches along with a strong background in hypnosis, mind-body modalities such as EMDR and inquiry approaches such as belief deconstruction.

I'm a "stretch", not a "shrink," who still loves and enjoys the calling of my field and the privilege of contributing to receptive, proactive clients, especially ones who bring a clear-eyed, heartfelt commitment to grow, unfold and evolve into being who they truly are. My contact information is at the top of each page of this web site.

I look forward to being of service in helping you help yourself.

George Demont Otis     Lagunitas Creek