I began working in private practice as a couples counsellor and relationship therapist shortly after completing my Hakomi Therapist Certification in 2008. Relationship work remained my focus for the next fourteen years, culminating in the creation of my R3 Relationship Masterclass.
Since 2021, I have transitioned away from conventional therapy attitudes and approaches, and have developed new, leading-edge ways of helping my clients thrive.
Most people are going to therapy to talk about unwanted experiences, past or present. This reflects a persistent but somewhat flawed idea about the value of “letting it out”, of purging, as if you’ve eaten something bad and you must get it out of your system before you can be well.
In therapy this takes the form of exploring (and repeating) unwanted feelings, thoughts, and life experiences of all kinds. This is done in the hopes of resolution or liberation, but this is not how it tends to work out in reality.
By exploring and repeating unwanted thoughts, feelings, and experiences, you end up practicing the state of being that is associated with these unwanted experiences. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect, and through the repetition of telling the stories of unwanted experiences, you become an expert at embodying them.
What this approach to therapy (or healing or integration or growth) can offer is to help you feel better about feeling bad, to help you accept the unwanted experiences you have had (or are having) by validating them in any number of ways.
I offer something entirely different. In my clients’ sessions with me, I help them practice embodying better feeling experiences and perspectives, in real-time. I help them practice preferable new ways of thinking and feeling and behaving, in the present moment, based on how they want to feel, so that they become experts in thriving rather than becoming experts in struggling.
This comes as a surprise to many new clients and inquisitive people who have been trained to expect therapy to be emotionally difficult, dramatic, cathartic, or intense.
The kind of work I do with clients can hardly be called “work”, and it involves no struggle. It’s quite a simple process: learn to distinguish between how you want to feel and how you don’t want to feel, and then start orienting your thinking, feeling, and behavior around the former rather than the latter. I have developed real, practical, and effective ways to do this, and they are accessible for anyone who is ready.
If you are interested in working with me, request a client information package by email. Please include your country of residence.
email: justice@justiceschanfarber.com
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