Psychotherapy Approach
For Dr. Bartlett, the path to emotional wellness is multi-faceted in nature. She incorporates both a long-term dynamic perspective with short-term, contemporary evidence-based treatment strategies for cognitive therapy and mindfulness training. Her approach combines insight-oriented work with goal-directed interventions. She encourages alternative techniques and lifestyle changes in conjunction with psychotherapy.
Dr. Bartlett encourages and explores techniques for increasing mindfulness in one’s life and supports clients’ beginning meditation practice. Research has revealed a number of benefits of a regular meditation practice.
Cognitive Therapy and Mindfulness Training
Do you need help with depression, mood disorders, anxiety, panic, or stress? Would specialized counseling at every life cycle stage enable you live a better life? Working together, let me help you find:
- Strength and recovery from sadness, loneliness, helplessness and fatigue
- Control over your fears
- The power to move forward with peace and calmness
- Ways to alleviate tension on a daily basis.
Meditation
“Training our attention so that we can be more aware – not only of our inner workings, but also of what’s happening around us in the here and now. Once we can see clearly what is going on, we can then choose whether and how to act on what we are seeing…. It teaches us to focus and pay clear attention to our experiences and responses as they are, and to observe without judging them.” (Real Happiness, Sharon Salzberg) Clients use these skills to make more healthy choices and to feel less critical of themselves if they slip up. In other words, to stay in the moment instead of reliving the past.
Benefits of a Meditation Practice
- Clients experience increased focus and concentration in many areas of their lives.
- Clients notice distorted assumptions that are limiting their joy and success.
- Clients become more open to all emotions – negative, neutral and positive. Meditation helps clients realize that they can better tolerate painful emotional states.
- Clients develop an understanding that while it is not possible to change our emotions per se, meditation can help change our reactions to our emotions.
The Science of Meditation Practice
Recent studies indicate that regular meditation actually creates physiological changes in the brain. Structures that aid in decision making, memory and emotional flexibility are strengthened through a regular meditation practice. Dr. Bartlett has found that meditation/mindfulness teachings in conjunction with psychotherapy have yielded many positive gains for her clients.