Seeking a Counselor in West Lafayette or Lafayette, IN?
After working with people in individual therapy since 2004, I know that I am most effective at working with people who are open to the possibility that the way they feel, think, and act in the present is greatly influenced by the way they were related to in the past. Believing that what has been harmed in relationship must be healed in relationship, I also know that the way to help people grow and heal is to provide a relational experience where they not only understand the dynamics and effects of their past, but also experience the healing that occurs from bringing neglected and traumatized parts into a new and healing relational experience in the present. To me, this relational experience is the thing I'm most effective at providing and the source of healing that results in the deepest changes in the way one feels, thinks, and acts.
The goal of therapy is to help people develop more attuned nervous systems. Using psychodynamic and trauma-informed therapy, I do this using concepts from Attachment Theory, Polyvagal Theory (PVT), and Internal Family Systems (IFS).
Attachment Theory
Insecure, conflicted, and ambivalent attachments are a significant cause of anxiety, depression, and unwanted behaviors like addictions, reckless behavior, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, caretaking, people-pleasing, caretaking, worrying, perfectionism, procrastination, overthinking, and poor or excessive sleeping. You were born with certain capacities to comfort, soothe, and regulate yourself. Ideally, parents provide empathy in various forms-validation, understanding, support, guidance, and discipline-that expands your ability to self-regulate, make decisions, resolve conflict, and solve problems. Therapy provides a safe place for individuals, couples, and families wanting help with anger management, anxiety, depression, and relationship issues. Individual counseling helps individuals bring to mind good and positive relationships, memories, and experiences in order to self-regulate. Co-regulation also occurs in therapy when the patient is vulnerable and the therapist is emotionally engaged, resulting in the patient feeling deeply understood. In order for the frustration, neglect, trauma, and pain of past relationships to be healed, parts of a person must be related to by the therapist in an experiential way. This allows the patient-therapist relationship to become more prominent and impactful in how you feel and think about yourself and the behaviors you use to regulate yourself.
Polyvagal Theory
According to PVT, the goal of therapy is to help patients develop a well-attuned nervous system (NS). PVT says there are three states of the NS: Safe and Social, Fight or Flight (F/F), and Shutdown/Collapse/Frozen (SD). While a healthy NS fluctuates between these three states with varying frequencies, one experiences suffering when he gets stuck in F/F or SD states. Both of these survival states are developed in the absence of adequate emotional support to protect oneself from emotional dysregulation and to feel safe in the world. We typically associate F/F with anxiety and SD with depression. In F/F, a person protects himself through action (fight or flight) while in SD one protects himself through inactivity and disappearance. Therapy helps a person develop the ability to stay in a state of relational safety more often and to return there more quickly when emotionally dysregulated.
Internal Family Systems
IFS says one is born with an undamaged self from which come the 8 Cs: calm, clarity, compassion, connection, confidence, courage, curiosity, and creativity. While this self remains undamaged despite the trauma and neglect one experiences in life, parts take on roles in the form of protectors and exiles to deal with the emotional effects of the overwhelmlng or traumatic event or circumstance. Both protectors and exiles have their own personalities which include thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Exiles are parts that have negative feelings, trauma, and hurt associated with them. A protector's job is to keep exiles suppressed and out of awareness. Examples of protectors include caretaking, overthinking, worry, striving, analyzing, perfectionism, people-pleasing, anger, procrastination, addictions, eating disorders, self-harm, control, and busyness. The role of therapy is to unburden these protectors and exiles from the extreme roles they took on so one can live from a more self-led presence. As an individual, couples, and family therapist, my role is to interact with you in an energetic, compassionate, and emotionally present way so your self gets stronger. Less effective and less healthy protectors relax and fall away and allow us to attend to the exiles in compassionate, caring, and healing ways. The energy freed up from the unburdening of protectors and exiles can then be used in other aspects of one's life.
In addition to working with individuals as a mental health therapist, Randy offers adolescent counseling, couples therapy, and family counseling.