Kira Love Counseling Services

How I Work...

When clients arrive at my comfortable Everett office they are greeted with an oasis away from the hustle and bustle of their lives to the soft sound of a gentle water-fountain and the tranquil hues of muted earth-tones. A calming environment can help calm troubled hearts and lives. I also meet with clients across country via telephone and webcam. My primary therapeutic orientations are also soothing and gentle modalities: Lifespan Integration, Attachment Theory, and aspects of Internal Family Systems.

I think one of the greatest gifts we as therapists can bestow upon our
clients is the gift of "compassionate witness." Many of us long to be truly seen, heard, known and loved. Often times, unfortunately, people have spent years accruing just the opposite, that is, feeling invisible, silenced/voiceless, isolated and rejected or abandoned... especially when trauma is in their backgrounds. I believe that as a compassionate witness who has some tools for promoting healing in the inner most being, the client with her/his internal resources is capable of achieving a more fulfilled, abundant life and of experiencing wholeness and restoration in his/her relationships.

As I accompany clients in their inward journeys across their timeline in life, I am hopeful and confident of witnessing my clients develop or solidify their core self and of becoming more integrated and reconciled with parts of themselves and with the external people in their lives. As we do this work, my aim is to provide a safe, boundaried therapeutic relationship in which the client and I work toward reaching the client's goals at the client's pace and in ways that feel safe for the client.

Lifespan Integration, or LI, Therapy is a method which works on a deep neural level altering embedded, habitual responses and problematic defense mechanisms. Through the process of LI, clients connect distressing feeling states and dysfunctional behavioral patterns with the originating and corresponding memories.  After LI therapy, clients often recognize that they are no longer reacting inappropriately to current stressors in their lives, but rather they are responding with increasing balance between the rational and emotional minds. LI appears to accelerate the healing process of many issues and is especially helpful in working through previously stuck places connected to past traumatic events and present life conditions. LI continues to be an effective tool for treating PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), which results from trauma, including: childhood abuse, domestic violence, rape, accidents, clergy/professional abuse and war experiences.

Attachment Theory includes ten tenets or understandings of
attachment. People are “wired” to need attachment (relationship) which ideally offers a secure base and a safe haven from which to explore the world. When accessibility and responsiveness are limited or non-existent from our primary care givers or in our current significant attachments, separation distress results. We then tend to develop and/or respond from insecure attachment styles, such as: Avoidant (Dismissive or Fearful), Ambivalent (Preoccupied), and Disorganized (Disoriented). Attachment involves working models of Self and other. It is important to remember that isolation and loss are inherently traumatizing.

The above therapeutic processes are used in conjunction with features of Internal Family Systems, such as locating parts or aspects of the client which are stuck in time  (usually in points of  hurt and / or  trauma), compassionately witnessing the trauma and integrating these ego states into the adult.

None of these therapeutic orientations include hypnosis, and to reiterate, other therapeutic approaches are used based on client needs and preferences.

Course of Therapy

Typically therapy involves an assessment phase in which each counselee or family is evaluated, a treatment phase—usually lasting between twelve to twenty sessions but may be shorter or longer depending upon the problems addressed—and a termination phase which involves summary of progress and an ongoing plan for health and balance. It is not unusual for some life issues to need “re-working,” and many clients return to therapy at different times in life for support and maintenance. I believe therapy is a responsible part of maintaining health and balance in life.