Shai Lavie, MFT
Shai Lavie, MFT
Embodied Psychotherapy and Transformational Groups
You Can Feel Good Inside Yourself.
You Can Live the Life that your Deepest Self Yearns to Live.
Real change comes when we access deeper levels of our mind/body/spirit. Neuroscience has recently begun to study what Buddhist practitioners have known for thousands of years: Mindfulness enables us to fundamentally change how we engage our lives. My psychotherapy work builds from this possibility.
I offer:
- Individual psychotherapy for adults, teens, and children
- Couples and Family Therapy
- Trainings for therapists in mindfulness-based psychotherapy
- Group work for adults and teens
- Wilderness-based group journeys
- Consultation for organizations and schools
- Specialized trainings for mental health agencies
- Supervision for MFT interns
I work with:
- Relationship difficulties
- Life transitions
- Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Anxiety problems
- Addictions
- General feelings of isolation, depression, or withdrawal from life
- Blocks in creativity
- Spiritual and existential crises
- Interest in personal growth/ self-discovery
- People interested in how they can become more heartful and effective agents for social transformation
Modalities I utilize:
- Integrative Psychotherapy (Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist [#MFC35526])
- The Hakomi Method of Body-Oriented Psychotherapy (Certified Hakomi Therapist and Trainer) [see www.hakomiinstitute.com]
- The Somatic Experiencing Method developed by Peter Levine (Certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner) [see www.traumahealing.com]
- Mindfulness Practice (more than 25 years experience with Vipassana Meditation/Mindfulness)
What is Mindfulness and How Does it Support Psychotherapy?
"Mindfulness" describes a quality of awareness of our present-time experience. We are "mindful" when we bring awareness to our body sensations, emotions, and thoughts, without judgment and expectations. In somatically-centered mindfulness, or Embodied Mindfulness, we explore how awareness of the body in particular facilitates a much deeper understanding of who we are and what we really need. Neuroscientist Daniel Siegel writes in The Mindful Brain, “Mindful awareness is a form of experience that seems to promote neural plasticity.” Mindfulness builds bridges between different parts of the brain, allowing for change in deeply held emotional patterns. Hakomi and Somatic Experiencing are methods that utilize Embodied Mindfulness to support fundamental change in how we experience life.
Mindfulness and the Embodied Self
Embodied Mindfulness allows us to drop more into our natural, Embodied Self.
It is here that we find our direction, our calling, and our deepest sense of purpose. When we live in our Embodied Self, we relate to others more authentically. Our relationships become more meaningful and satisfying. We feel like we are living the lives we were meant to live.
Bringing It All Together
My psychotherapy work brings together time-honored practices of Mindfulness with cutting-edge therapeutic approaches to engaging core belief systems, developing inner resources, and resolving trauma. I work differently with each person, because each person is different. But with each person, couple, family, or group, I seek to honor the unique truth, vision, and voice that is waiting to emerge; the dream that wants to find itself truly embodied, awake and alive.