My Approach - Michelle Cox

My therapeutic style is grounded in compassion, nurturing and respect. I believe the decision to pursue therapy is a sign of strength and resourcefulness. It isn’t easy to admit that you’ve been struggling, and reaching out to an experienced therapist can feel risky. As your guide on your journey of healing, I am committed to providing a safe environment that allows for the expression of your concerns, challenges and secrets.

My belief is that a therapeutic relationship is built on a foundation of trust, which I work on building from our first conversation. This allows me to offer my empathy, skill, knowledge and intuition as building blocks you can use as you work toward your personal and relationship goals.

In our sessions, I help you gain insight on ways to manage physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual issues. As you are comfortable, I offer experiential therapies that will help you recognize the mind-body connection and how it affects your emotions and behavior. I emphasize finding your way – your path to strengthening resilience. Not only can you learn to manage your challenges, but you can begin the life-changing work of healing. Healing that comes from making shifts in thinking, behavior and relationships. Healing that addresses concerns, whether they are present day realities or rooted in the past. Healing that results in finding your way to living a more satisfying life.

Utilizing a strengths-based perspective and a holistic approach, our work together is tailored to meet your specific needs and goals.

Some of the treatment orientations that will guide us in our work include:

Attachment theory focuses on how attachments were formed early in life, as a child, and how those experiences affect the relationships individuals form as they mature and develop. This approach can help you experience a new way of being in relationship where it feels safe to explore your fears and grieve past losses

CBT examines how thoughts affect our emotions and behavior. It focuses on the present and is more problem-solving oriented. Skills learned during CBT will last a lifetime and can be applied to address a variety of challenges in the future.

EFT provides a framework for couples to stop negative cycles and patterns of behavior, re-establish their connection and strengthen their emotional bond. Particular attention is paid to the link between attachment and emotions, helping you accept, express, regulate, make sense of and transform your emotions.

EMDR provides a way for people who have been exposed to a traumatic event to alleviate the emotional response and disturbing traumatic memories. As a research-based intervention, in addition to treating trauma, EMDR has proven highly effective in working with distress as a result of chronic pain issues, depression, negative self-beliefs and anxiety.

Expressive therapies – such as art, writing, music and play – facilitate the mind-body connection by allowing people to express their thoughts and feelings differently than they could through words alone. By using the senses to create and express, you can communicate aspects of memories or stories that aren’t properly captured with words, gaining new perspective on your situation.

Equine assisted psychotherapy is an experiential form of psychotherapy that incorporates horses in clinical sessions. Interacting with horses presents you with an opportunity to learn about being in the present, building trust, connecting with self and others and how these are affecting your current relationships and behaviors.

Mindfulness is about learning to notice what is happening in the present moment, within you and around you. By cultivating this ability you learn to observe and connect with your physical body, internal emotional landscape and the environment around you. This allows you to recognize the effects that stress and patterns of thoughts and behavior are having on you and your relationships. With this increased awareness, you can make conscious decisions about the changes you can make to improve your life.

The mind and body exist in a relationship where one can affect the other, either positively or negatively. Evidence of the effectiveness of somatic/mind-body techniques and therapies is found in neuro-scientific research. By engaging in treatments like EMDR, mindfulness, guided visualization, CBT and expressive therapies you can discover the connection between your mind and body and how it affects your emotional life. Additionally, these techniques can provide relief from the stored memories and negative patterns that may be interrupting your life, opening doors to positive change and personal growth.

Psycho-dynamic therapy provides a way to gain insight and awareness into how past experiences are affecting and influencing your present behavior. By understanding the patterns and defense mechanisms that you have developed to help cope with life’s distresses, and why these may not be working right now, you can begin to make changes which will provide relief.

Solution-focused therapy is an approach that helps you identify and focus on the strengths and positive, successful behaviors that have worked well for you in the past. Building on areas of success and strength provides you with the opportunity – and motivation – to grow and make meaningful, lasting changes in your life.

If you are ready to begin our work together and find your way to strengthen resilience and create a satisfying life, call 303-563-7028 or contact me here to schedule a no-cost, no-obligation 30-minute consultation.