How I Practice Psychotherapy

Together, we work to make a significant impact to improve your life.

In therapy, I listen to my clients from a holistic perspective, taking into account the mind, body, and spirit of the individual person. Practicing in this way, we explore your life through your dreams, memories, fantasies, beliefs, thoughts, images, and feelings to fully understand you. We begin to piece together all that has happened in your life so that we can understand and fix what is currently causing you pain. Feelings and experiences that are deeply buried, especially those that were unable to be processed in the past can cause current distress and get triggered in your present life. We look at how the unconscious meanings you have made of your life experiences later guide your choices and responses in current relationships, work, school, and life decisions. These meanings or beliefs are often outside of our conscious awareness but can guide our choices in ways that are problematic or self-defeating.

I use Cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques for improving skills in communication, self-awareness, emotional tolerance, and clarity with feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. Using powerful modalities of EMDR, hypnosis, mindfulness meditation, and guided visualization, to help my clients tolerate difficult emotional states, painful memories, and problematic beliefs. In this way, the painful past gets reprocessed and my client moves toward more peaceful feelings and better inter-personal interactions. These techniques are also helpful for chronic pain relief and the fear beliefs that accompany physical pain.

In sessions, I also direct your attention to your body, to help you access your unconscious awareness to your environment. The body often responds to situations long before our mind does, but sometimes we block this awareness. We lead from our mind which might not always be clear, thus blocking inner intuition. Becoming more aware of our body and what it is trying to tell us, often makes reactions and choices more productive. Sometimes the body and mind can feel disconnected. You may feel too much, too intensely, and be confused by it. Or perhaps you think too much and feel stuck in your head unable to make decisions and berating yourself. Both are very painful places to be – either emotionally overwhelmed or overthinking everything. Therapy can help integrate this, leading to feelings of wholeness, peacefulness, and well-being.

My style in therapy is warm, honest, and interactive. I always try to understand why my client feels and behaves how they do. Often behavior that is difficult, makes sense when we understand that our brain is just trying to protect us, and has developed coping strategies to do just that. Sometimes, these coping strategies result in unhappy outcomes and so we need to fix them fast. I see human beings as always capable of positive lasting change, and that hard times and crises are often opportunities to learn and grow. My goal is for you to feel safe enough to tell me anything and everything. If it is difficult to say and feel, then the best place to deal with it is in our session. Our goal in therapy is to create balance in your life and help you live the life you deserve, a life filled with an abundance of inner peace, fulfillment, and happiness.

Please don’t hesitate to call me at (408) 247-7909 to learn more about the services I offer and find out whether or not we’d be a good fit for working together. I look forward to connecting with you and helping in any way I can.

Call 408.247.7909

Dr. Michelle Wambach, Psy.D.
4020 Moorpark Avenue, Suite 206
San Jose, California 95117