Directory
AuthorAbout Gary Siegel LCSW
My name is Gary Siegel and I have been in private practice as a therapist for over 30 years. There has from the beginning been an interest in what is sometimes called depth psychology which to me means there is a level of consciousness that is not immediately available but which most of us, to varying degrees feel a connection with, or have access to.
Carl Jung is perhaps the grandfather of this line of inquiry, though he had many forefathers coming from old cultures in various places around the world.
I also believe what has been found in study after study that the quality of connection between the therapist and client predicts success more than any other factor. The study of attachment theory which is very important to my work offers a partial reason why. Being a human being offers some more of the reason.
Another strong area of influence is the realm of brain science. The last twenty years as it has been said have seen an explosion of information on the brain. And if you ask me, we are going to need the next twenty to keep going because there is a lot more we don’t know. But there are a few areas of this realm that are important to how I approach my work.
One is my involvement in Neurofeedback, where we use an EEG (electroencephalogram) to map out a picture of your brain’s activity. I have been studying these for over 10 years and getting a picture of a client’s brain explains a lot of things about their symptoms and tendencies that are “not psychological” but show some of the cause. It clarifies what is and isn’t an issue.
Stemming from that is the recognition that some of the functioning of the brain and its problems comes from poor nutrition and from consistent long term stress that wears the brain down in a number of specific biochemical ways. For this reason I refer patients to a local Naturopathic Doctor when we turn up some of these issues so that they can reduce these problems and put their brain on a better long term trajectory, for mental health and for the health of the brain itself (which like any other organ can be healthy if challenged).
Another area that is informed by brain science but much less technological is a deep appreciation of how the nervous system as a whole manages stress and trauma, and how early life experiences that don’t look like trauma in the way we normally understand the word.
The neural networks functioning at various different distances from the surface to the depths of our awareness are able to be observed and sensed in session, and we seek as we calm them down or coax them out to generate new responses and new networks, and then to imprint oneself with these so that the brain can begin to call on these new blends more and more naturally.
All of these concepts and bits of knowledge enrich the possibilities of what we can understand about a particular person’s challenges and sufferings, enabling the “right brain” and the intuition to bring together new responses that are more fluid and functional – improving lives and fulfilling potential.
I will be wring about what underlies the emotional and psychological aspects of our selves that are apparent on the surface. Thinking about how the brain has many different systems that merge and blend in all different combinations opens the door to a more nuanced and realistic sense of this amazing mechanism we have inside ourselves.
When tackling a topic to comment on, I am less focused on “what I know” and more focused on what I can come to understand about each unique situation. Applying what I do know in a novel manner to fit the topic of conversation is the goal. And so it’s a constant process of discovery, informed yes by a lot of specific knowledge, but developed uniquely with a dose of intuition.
Yes the right brain is going to have a lot of play here.
