Daniel Davis, LMFT

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A Felt Sense of the Body

February 2, 2016 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

Alexithymia is a condition where one has difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings. Someone with Alexithymia has trouble with thinking and regulating their emotions. This disorder appears to be partly responsible for disease and mental health issues.

John Omaha, the inventor of Affect Management Skills Training, cites research that men lack emotional sensitivity. Research indicates that emotional numbness is a one way someone responds to stressful challenges in life. Men are more emotionally numb that women. I realize that this is not a surprise to much of the world. Men, women, and children are often reminded of how men lack emotional sensitivity. Women are often better at bonding than men which is related to emotional sensitivity.

Many men have one person that they share their insecurities, fears, shame, sadness, or tragedies – their wife or girlfriend. Many men do not even share intimately with anyone. It can be a lonely world to hide our feelings and thoughts from everyone. I must add that some women do not share their insecurities, fears, shame, anger, or tragedies with anyone as well.

Women seem more playful than men. Watch children. The girls and boys are singing. The girls will be swaying and grooving with the music. The boys will be stiff as boards. It may be the due to incomplete separation from their mother. Robert Bly writes: “When a girl is two or three, she can look up at her mother and say ‘That is what I am going to be’. A boy the same age can look up at his mother and say, ‘That is not what I am going to be’. Separating from the mother is difficult for both genders; some children have good luck with it, some less good luck”. When we separate from our mothers, other boys often shame us calling us sissy or mama’s boy. This results in a wound that stays with us for a long time. Some boys are able to resolve this wound and gain more separation from their mother psychologically.

If as men, we are unable to resolve our wound separating from our mother as a young boy, then will tend to be stiff. We may become a lawyer, an engineer, or scientist. We can become obsessed with distance. He may have a tendency as an adult to treat people as if they were things, and to treat things as if they were people.

Although social support is a key factor in our psychological and physical health, many of us live lives of isolation, loneliness, and despair. We may live in bedroom communities in our neighborhoods, driving home late in our smart cars to our big screen televisions, computers, or smart phones. Some of us are overwhelmed with the responsibilities of children or work that we scarcely feel as if we have a free moment. We had friends once, but no longer find time.

Our experiences of our bodies may be numbness and pain. We may experience moments of relief when eating or drinking alcohol or having sex or playing a video game or working on the computer. Robert Johnson wrote: “We have an insatiable need of entertainment – we moderns watch TV and other screens more than seven hours a day – and for anything that might assuage our longing, especially late at night”.

Many of us remain strangers to our body sensations. Waking up to our emotions, body shifts, vital energy, erotic urges, and even aggressive impulses can be disturbing. We have become strangers to our own pleasure. We have sacrificed our joy for the seductive distractions of the commercial replacements in modern life.

From our morning caffeine, to our mid-morning sugar, to our afternoon Red Bull, and then to the big dinner and perhaps a few drinks. We may find temporary relief in our submission to much artificial assistants to climb up the daunting hill of our day, only to rest and do it all again tomorrow.

Vacations are a rarity. If someone takes time off, they must check their email and return phone calls from work matters. They may get up at 3:00 am for meetings with colleagues from around the globe. We become a source of output for the corporate profit machine. What is our reward? Where do we find relief or sanctuary if our own body no longer recognizes pleasure but only a relief from pain into temporary numbness?

Please watch this video by Nils Peterson on poetry and the body:

 

Filed Under: Blog, Calming Oneself, Somatic Therapy Tagged With: Affect Management Skills Training, aggressive, alcohol, Alexithymia, AMST, big, body, body shifts, bonding, caffeine, children, Dinner, disease, drinks, drugs, emotional, emotions, entertainment, erotic, fears, impulses, insecurities, John Omaha, marijuana, mental health issues, numbness, overeating, playful, Red Bowl, regulating their emotions, research, Robert Johnson, sadness, sensations, sensitivity, separating from mother, shame, sugar, thinking, tragedies, urges, vacations, vital energy, women, wound, young boy

What is Emotional Regulation?

January 26, 2016 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

An important part of psychological well-being is healthy self-soothing. Being able to calm yourself down is important. When someone feels too much anger, he may yell, curse, or hit someone else. Acting out our emotions destructively is one consequence of poor emotional regulation. Another way of dealing with painful emotions is to try to numb ourselves with alcohol or other drugs. Many problems result from our inability to regulate our feelings well.

When we are born, we rely on our mother (or primary caregivers) to calm down. Our brain is designed to rely on interactions with others to find balance and adjust to surrounding circumstances. Early in life, infants need connections to caregivers in order to develop healthy brain function. The interactions between the child and parent enable the child to achieve balance or regulation within her own mind. Interactions with caregivers allow the child’s brain to develop the structures necessary to move from emotional regulation with a parent to more independent forms of emotional regulation.

When children who are infants, toddlers, and preschoolers experience healthy emotional regulation in their relationships with their mom, they become school children who are seen by peers and teachers as likable. These children also perform well in school, show good social skills, and act in ways that build their relationships with others. But children with poor emotion socialization have difficulty in peer relationships, have trouble in school, and are at risk for emotional problems such as anxiety and depression during their childhood. These effects persist into adulthood.

Children need environments, like home and school, where they can be emotionally expressive. Children need parents who express their emotions, but do not overwhelm their children. A mother’s emotions have a powerful influence on her child’s emotional development. Children benefit when mothers talk about their own emotions. When their children are emotional, mothers who avoid yelling and punishing and provide positive responses to their children, enable their children understand their emotions better. Children also need their emotions to be accepted. When children are raised in an environment where they learn to explore their own emotions, and they learn to make connections between their emotional experience and events they see. They are able to understand their emotions in various situations.

After they reach school age, children who assess and process emotional information will in turn respond more appropriately to others and have skills that promote their own emotion self-soothing. The more emotional intelligence that children have, the greater their empathy they have with peers. These children also behave in ways that promote relationships, and they are more popular. The children who can identify their emotions and who self-sooth them well are seen as more likable and more prosocial in relationships with their peers. These early emotional experiences are a foundation for emotional intelligence.
When we are feeling highly emotional, we are in a state of emotional imbalance. An event with the people or events around us can trigger an emotional reaction. These emotional reactions are made more likely by past experiences that created vulnerabilities within the individual. These vulnerabilities are embedded in our memory and directly influence our thoughts, feelings, and choices.

Our emotions and affect influence what we see and hear. Our perceptions can be changed by the affect being experienced by the perceiver. “An affect oriented clinician can help a client more accurately perceive his environments by teaching him (Affect Management Skills Training) AMST skills to regulate his affect,” writes Dr. John Omaha.

The development of affect regulation, enables the emergence of a strong sense of self. When one has poor sense of self, he will not be able to self-soothe well. An adult with a strong sense of self is able to manage disturbing events and respond quickly to stressful demands. She will be able to remain self-aware during a disturbing event. This optimally functioning adult will be flexible, highly skillful, and self-aware in the area of emotions and affect. She will genuinely and with authority increase positive emotions, like joy, and calm negative emotions, like shame. This has been called a self-reflective function. Self-soothing with be accomplished by making use of inner images of safety, soothing, validation, and affirmation. The optimally functioning adult will not use alcohol, other drugs, food, sex, relationship, or work to numb out emotions. They will manifest vitality and will pursue the goals she sets for herself with energy and persistence. Please watch this video and learn about healthy emotional regulation from Dr. John Omaha:

Keywords:
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Filed Under: Affect Management Skills Training (AMST), AMST (Affect Management Skills Training), Blog, Calming Oneself Tagged With: Affect Centered Therapy, Affect Management Skills Training, AMST, anxiety, brain function, depression, emotional intelligence, Emotional Regulation, emotionally, emotionally flexible, emotionally self-aware, healthy caregiver, highly skillful, infant, John Omaha, likable, mother, numb, parents, preschoolers, psychological, school children, school performance, self soothing, social skills, strong sense of self, toddlers, well-being

Disposal Skill (Emotional Down Regulation)

October 20, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

What if we could just make our pain disappear? This may seem only a fantasy, when we are struggling with painful depression or feeling overwhelmed with anxiety. Yet we are all born with the ability to calm ourselves. Some of us develop these emotional regulation skills better than others. The good news is that we can learn skills as we grow into adolescence and adulthood to sooth our painful feelings.

Our affects are biological. These affects include joy, startle, fear, anger, sadness, shame, and disgust. These affects are part of the hard-wiring of our brains. Affects are universal. Our nervous system sends signals all over the body which change our heart rate, muscles, and perspiration. These affects are part of human life for all of us on the planet earth.
Our affect becomes a feeling when we are aware of the affect. When I notice my ear feeling hot, I am experiencing shame as a feeling. As affects are repeatedly experienced through our lives, they get associated with memories, thoughts, and images. Nathanson writes, “affect is biology, emotion is biography.” The story we tell our friends, families and ourselves about the feelings that we experience is our emotion.

The first memory that I have is of being in the garage of my family’s new house on Wagman Drive in San Jose, California, USA. It was 1966, and I was 3 years old. I feel joy when I think of this memory. The affect of joy is linked to my memory in the garage and thoughts of my early life with my parents and older brother and sister. This is an example of an explicit memory.
We also have implicit memories. I may have implicit memories about my adoption, although I was adopted when I was only a day old. These adoption memories are connected to sadness and fear. When something happens that reminds me of my adoption, I may feel sad or afraid. These are the ways that neural networks are formed in the brain and throughout the body. Yet it is possible to change these responses with Affect Management Skills Training (AMST).

We can learn to down-regulate distressing emotions and affect by using the Disposal Skill. The Disposal Resource is done by imagining standing at the kitchen sink and throwing the upsetting emotion down the drain. This implies a reduction in the intensity of the painful emotion, such as anger or shame. “The disposal resource may be represented by a sink disposal unit, a garbage disposal, a black hole, and a bottomless pit,” writes John Omaha.

As children, we begin to learn to calm ourselves. The better our mother, father, or other caregivers, regulate their affect, the better we acquire the ability to self-soothe. If we learn a healthy sense of shame as a child, we are able to see our limits and set healthy limits for ourselves. If our father is alcoholic, we may develop difficulty stopping self-destructive behavior, like drinking or overeating. Unhealthy shame leads us to feel worthless and is the most painful emotion we can experience.

The good news is that our mind can change our brain. We can form new neural pathways in our brains. AMST enables us to form new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving by learning skills to calm our emotions and affect as well as balance our brain. Please watch this video and learn to down-regulate painful emotions:

Note: It is helpful to use the Butterfly Hug when using the Disposal Skill. You can watch the video below on the Butterfly Hug for instructions on how to use it:

Key Words:

blog 26
Blogs by Daniel Davis, Emotional Down Regulation 2
John Omaha, Emotional Down Regulation 2
Affect Centered Therapy
Affect Management Skills Training (AMST) , Emotional Down Regulation 2
Donald Nathanson
Memory – Implicit and Explicit
neural networks
“Disposal Skill (Emotional Down Regulation)”

 

Filed Under: AMST (Affect Management Skills Training), Anger Management, Blog Tagged With: Affect Centered Therapy, Affect Management Skills Training, AMST, Bilateral Brain Stimulation, Disposal Skill, Donald Nathanson, Emotional Down Regulation, Explicit, Implicit, John Omaha, Memory, neural networks

Grounding Skill

October 13, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

I love having my feet planted on the ground as well as being connected to the deepest wisdom. This kind of balance is rare, and yet I aspire to find this type of inspiration and effectiveness inside of myself. Affect Management Skills Training (AMST) has a key skill to help me become my best. It is called the Grounding Skill.

AMST enables a person to recognize and name a range of positive and negative emotions. Our emotions are not good and bad, but some emotions are more pleasant while others are more painful. My emotions give me important feedback about what is going on inside and outside myself. Outside of myself, there is an environment with people, places, things, and events. Inside me, I have reactions to my environment as well as overreactions which I call projections. When I can see objectively and stay aware of my emotions, I am able to navigate life with more grace and effectiveness.

We can confuse emotions or not know what were are feeling, even though we know we are upset. Alexithymia is the inability to recognize emotions as well as express emotions with words. Some people walk around unaware of how they are feeling. They are mad but do not know it. I ask my friend, “are you upset?”

And he answers, “No, but if you keep asking me questions like that, I’m going to get mad!”

AMST teaches us to uncover and name the physical sensations we feel as we experience specific emotions. When I am mad, I feel a rush of unpleasant hot energy in my arms and face. AMST skills enables us to link the emotion of anger with being grounded in our bodies. When we are rooted in our body, we can sense how we feel. Grounding enables us to remain aware of the present moment, including what is going on with people, place, things, and events outside us as well as our thoughts, feelings, and other sensations inside of us. As we us these AMST skills, we automatically link emotional responses with staying grounded and present. This keeps us in an adult state of mind and enables to be at our best.

The Grounding Skill gives me the tools to stay grounded and present when I feel anger. The AMST tools enable us to stay conscious, instead of unconsciously and compulsively “acting out behaviors such as bingeing or purging, substance abuse, and verbal or physical violence.” writes Dr. John Omaha who created AMST.

The Grounding Skill helps us learn to tolerate a range of emotions as well as regulate a range of intensities of emotions. Our emotions are like a heating and air conditioning system. Could you imagine living in a house with no thermostat? The air conditioning may come on in the middle of winter when there is snow outside. The heater may come on during the hottest day in summer. Wow, this makes life so difficult! When we can lower or raise our emotions with AMST skills, we feel empowered. When our emotions are beyond our ability to influence, we feel powerless.

These AMST skills enable us to heal from painful psychological symptoms of accidents or violence, sometime called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. We can heal from the traumatic events, because we have the capacity to stay grounded and present while we recall upsetting events from the past. We are also able to identify how we are feeling and reacting in a variety of stressful situations and talk about these responses which enables us to heal more rapidly.

These AMST skills are like the skills we learn playing sports such as soccer, playing a music instrument like a guitar, or singing. The more we practice the skills, the better we refine our use of the skills. Practicing skills enables us to eventually apply the skills without thinking about them. We can become unconscious and competent – at the same time. “Repetition is an important element” in AMST, writes Dr. John Omaha. We learn “to construct new neural networks and that repetition facilitates the process” of learning.

We learn to change our physical brain with our willpower. As Dr. Daniel Siegel says, “our mind changes our brain.” That is encouraging! Please watch this video and learn how to stay grounded and present as you feel a variety of emotions, like anger and fear:

Key Words:

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Blogs by Daniel Davis, Grounding Skill 2
John Omaha, Grounding Skill 2
Affect Centered Therapy
Affect Management Skills Training (AMST), Grounding Skill 2
Alexithymia – example
emotions
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
skills acquisition
“Grounding Skill”

 

Filed Under: Art, Blog, Uncategorized Tagged With: Affect Centered Therapy, Affect Management Skills Training, Alexithymia, AMST, Bilateral Brain Stimulation, emotions, example, Grounding Skill, John Omaha, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, skills acquisition

Safe Place Skill

October 6, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

Do you feel afraid too much? Do you have difficulty trusting people close to you?

The Safe Place Skill is an important part of Affect Management Skills Training (AMST). The Safe Place Skill and the Container Skill provide a foundation for our future healing and our development throughout our lives. When we lack the skill of trust, we are limited in our work and relationships. Yet when we are able to reclaim our ability to experience authentic containment of disturbing memories and a general feeling of calm, our life changes.

In our early life as a baby, we had the opportunity to develop a secure attachment with our mother. If we formed a secure attachment, our life had a strong psychological foundation upon which to build. In essence, we are developing a sense of safety in our early experience with our mother. Some of us have only a grandmother, father, or foster mom who raises us, but the challenge is still the same. Our task is to develop a healthy sense of safety.

When we feel safe at the appropriate times, we are able to venture out from our mother figure and experience the world independently. If we do experience the sensation of safety when we are in fact safe, it affects how we think and the choices we make. The relationships we develop are different, because we do not feel safe at the appropriate times.
When we have a well developed skill of trust, we are able to identify who is dangerous and who is safe. We can feel sensations in our body that help us distinguish situations and people that are unsafe. This is a skill that can save our life. We need to know who to trust and how much.

There is an important difference between feeling numb or feeling calm or neutral. Some people suffer from Alexithymia which is the inability to recognize emotions and express feelings with words. They feel numb.
We have implicit and explicit memories. When we have an explicit memory, we are aware of the past event and feel the emotions related to the memory. An implicit memory is a real event that we are not aware of as it effects our emotions. We see a dog and our heart beats rapidly, because we were bit by a dog in the past. Yet we may have no idea that we are feeling afraid. This is an example of an implicit memory.

Of course, ninety-five percent of our thinking is subconscious, below the level of the thoughts of which we are aware. Many thoughts are affecting us that are hidden from our conscious mind.
The Safe Place Skill can be used to soothe ourselves in situations that are stressful in daily life. It also can be used to learn to consciously induce the relaxation response. The relaxation response is our body’s ability to calm itself down. Affect Centered Therapy can rapidly enable us to feel safe and contain our worries. In this video, I demonstrate the Safe Place Skill, please watch and learn for yourself:

Key Words:
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Blogs by Daniel Davis, Safe Place Skill
John Omaha, Safe Place Skill
Affect Centered Therapy
Affect Management Skills Training (AMST), Safe Place Skill
Alexithymia
Memory – Implicit and Explicit
Secure Attachment
Subconscious Mind
“Safe Place Skill”

Filed Under: AMST (Affect Management Skills Training), Blog Tagged With: Affect Centered Therapy, Affect Management Skills Training, Alexithymia, AMST, Attachment, Bilateral Brain Stimulation, Explicit, Implicit, John Omaha, Memory, Safe Place Skill, Secure, Subconscious Mind

Container Skill

September 29, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

Do you worry too much? When our minds will not stop with its their endless negative thoughts, it can be really upsetting. Affect Management Skills Training (AMST) is a type of therapy that has a remedy for worry. When we have upsetting memories that will not stop, there is a skill to empower yourself to change it. “The mind can change the brain,” says Dr. Daniel Siegel.

During the container skill, we imagine a container that will hold every disturbing thing. The goal of the Container Skill is to wall off the memories of harmful experiences and the unpleasant overwhelming emotions connected to them.
AMST uses imagery as well as techniques to activate both the right and left sides of the brain. This enables one to be in a whole brain state which enables one to see reality from a clearer vantage point. When we see things more as they are we think, feel and act differently.

The Butterfly Hug is one of many techniques used to activate both the left and right sides of the brain. The activation of both the left and right hemispheres of the brain is called, Bilateral Brain Stimulation. In her book, “Getting Past Your Past,” Dr. Shapiro recommends crossing “your arms in front of you with your right hand on your left shoulder and your left hand on your right. Then, you tap your hands alternately on each shoulder slowly four to six times.”

Dr. John Omaha, creator of “Affect Centered Therapy,” says that he demonstrates the Butterfly Hug to clients without emphasizing any particular speed and pressure of the tapping. He said he figures that each client will find the best rate and strength of touch that works for them.

Francine Shapiro suggests another technique to activate both sides of the brain: “alternate tapping your thighs (with the tips of your right index finger, then left index finger) at the same slow speed for the same for length of time (as she suggests above for the Butterfly Hug).”

AMST not only used Bilateral Brain Stimulation, but also uses symbols to influence the subconscious mind. The language of the subconscious is symbolic, like in our dreams. Advertisers and film producers know how to use the power of symbols. Commercials on television and on the internet motivate people to buy products with symbols. We can learn to use images to motivate ourselves. If we wish to use religious or spiritual images, AMST has the means to do so.

By rehearsing these skills of emotional regulation when our upsetting emotions are at a lower level, we develop mastery. Just like a musical instrument or a sport, the more we practice the skills, the better we perform. Please watch this video and learn how to use the container skill from AMST.

Keywords:
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Blogs by Daniel Davis, Container Skill 2
John Omaha, Butterfly Hug 2 & Container Skill 2
Francine Shapiro, detailed description of Butterfly Hug and Bilateral Brain Stimulation
Daniel Siegel, mind
Affect Management Skills Training (AMST), Container Skill 2
Butterfly Hug – detailed description
“Getting Past Your Past: Take Control of Your Life with Self-Help Techniques from EMDR Therapy,” book
skills acquisition
symbols
“Container Skill”

Filed Under: Affect Management Skills Training (AMST), AMST (Affect Management Skills Training), Anger Management, Blog Tagged With: Affect Centered Therapy, Affect Management Skills Training, AMST, Bilateral Brain Stimulation, Butterfly Hug, Container Skill, Daniel Siegel, Francine Shapiro, Getting Past Your Past: Take Control of Your Life with Self-Help Techniques from EMDR Therapy, John Omaha, mind, skills acquisition, symbols

How do I calm down?

May 12, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

Think about the most mature and likable person you know.  They are probably flexible, highly skillful, and self-aware in the area of emotions and relationships.  She or he will genuinely and with confidence increase happiness and excitement as well as calm shame and anger inside her or himself.

It is like a thermostat inside of us.  A system of balancing our inner and outer worlds.  Sometimes, this system works very well, increasing our joy, desire, excitement at the best times.  Our anger, sadness, and fear will decrease as needed when this emotional system works well.  When this emotional system is not functioning well, we have trouble with our relationships and getting things done, like homework or tasks at work.

In the book, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” JK Rowling writes: “Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. . .You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.” Experiencing a dementor seems to be like being depressed.

Harry Potter learns to concentrate, with all his might, on a single, very happy memory.  This frees Harry Potter from the haunting clutches of dementors.  Great writers and directors of movies, like J.K. Rowling, William Shakespeare, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, know how to change the emotions of readers or moviegoers.

In order to have healthy, satisfying relationships and learn and work productively, we need to influence our emotions internally.  We can try to use external methods such as food, movies, alcohol, drugs, sex, computer games, or controlling others to calm our upsetting emotions, but they eventually fail to soothe us.

Yet we can also regulate our emotions internally by changing our breathing, physical exercise, self-talk, and focusing on an images of safety, affirmation, and validation.  With healthy emotional regulation, the goal is to be aware of your body and calm unpleasant emotions, not feel numb.  Unfortunately, a vast majority of men have difficulty even sensing the emotions in their bodies and describing them in words.

Emotional regulation is a skill we can learn with practice.  Over time, it begins to happen naturally, just like learning to tie your shoes.  Do you think about it when you tie your shoes?  Put simply, healthy emotional self-regulation is responding to challenges of a situation with a level emotion allowing mature actions.  Affect Centered Therapy teaches us the skills to calm our sadness or fear.

John Omaha, Ph.D., MFT, the creator of Affect Centered Therapy and author of the book, “Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Emotional Regulation: EMDR and Bilateral Stimulation for Affect Management,” is in private practice in Santa Rosa, California in the United States of America.  In this video, John demonstrates the important skill of down regulating emotion.

Key Words:

Blog 3
Blogs by Daniel Davis, Emotional Down Regulation 1
John Omaha, Emotional Down Regulation 1
J.K. Rowlings
Affect Management Skills Training (AMST), Emotional Down Regulation 1
Emotional Down Regulation
“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” book
self soothing
How do I calm down?
Affect Centered Therapy

Filed Under: AMST (Affect Management Skills Training), Blog Tagged With: Affect Centered Therapy, Affect Management Skills Training, Bilateral Stimulation, Emotional Down Regulation, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowlings, John Omaha, self soothing

How do I stay grounded and present when I feel fear or anger?

May 5, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

Have you done things you wish you had not?  Do you shout angry words you regret?  Do you withdraw when the one you love is angry?  We have two minds – one that thinks, called the Prefrontal Cortex, and one that feels, called the Amygdala.  It takes as little as thousands of a second for our emotional mind to lead us to shout or runaway.  The emotional mind can hijack the rational mind.  We are no longer seeing reality clearly as our rational mind is high-jacked and our decisions suffer.

How do I stay grounded and present when I feel anger or fear?

We need to learn to stay grounded in our body and connect with the present moment.  This type of mindfulness enables us to respond maturely to challenging circumstances and people. Affect Centered Therapy enables us to change our subconscious responses.  Ninety-five percent of our thinking is subconscious, below the level of the thoughts of which we are aware.

When I get stressed I eat too much ice cream. I cannot stop! I get so mad at my spouse; I shout and later regret what I have said.

Affect Centered Therapy can rapidly enable us to respond differently to our challenges.  We may leave a job that is a poor fit.  We may no longer need marijuana to fall asleep.  We may just walk away when someone shouts at us. John Omaha, Ph.D., MFT, the creator of Affect Centered Therapy and author of the book, “Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Emotional Regulation: EMDR and Bilateral Stimulation for Affect Management,” is in private practice in Santa Rosa, California in the United States of America.  In this video, John demonstrates the important skill of being grounded and present.

Key Words:

Blog 2
How do I stay grounded and present when I feel fear or anger?
Blogs by Daniel Davis, Grounding Skill 1
John Omaha, Grounding Skill 1
Affect Centered Therapy
Affect Management Skills Training (AMST), Grounding Skill 1
amygdala
Grounding Skill 1
Prefrontal Cortex
Subconscious Mind

Filed Under: AMST (Affect Management Skills Training), Blog Tagged With: Affect Centered Therapy, Affect Management Skills Training, AMST, Grounding Skill, John Omaha, Prefrontal Cortex, Subconscious Mind

Would You Like to Be Free of Worry?

April 28, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT 4 Comments

Do upsetting memories or trauma affect your concentration? We may lie awake at night with our mind filled with worries about money. A memory of an argument with our child or partner may distract our concentration the next day while trying to concentrate on school or work.

Containing these intrusive worries is an important thing to learn. “Affect Centered Therapy” is a remedy for problems controlling our thoughts and emotions. As a baby, we learn to soothe or calm ourselves from our mother’s love as she holds and caresses us. We then learn to comfort ourselves by sucking our thumb or snuggling with our blanket.

Sometimes, we may have upsetting or distracting memories of which we may or may not be aware. All the time, all our experiences are present in our minds, research confirms.

We can learn the “Container Skill.” By using our imagination as well as valuable techniques to balance the hemispheres of our right and left brain, we can feel calmer and focus on work or those whom we love.

John Omaha, Ph.D., MFT, the creator of Affect Centered Therapy and author of the book, “Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Emotional Regulation: EMDR and Bilateral Stimulation for Affect Management,” is in private practice in Santa Rosa, California in the United States of America.  In this video, John demonstrates the important skill of containment.

Keywords:
Blogs by Daniel Davis, Container Skill 1
John Omaha, Container Skill 1
Affect Management Skills Training (AMST), Container Skill 1
Container Skill
Worry
Would You Like to Be Free of Worry?
“Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Emotional Regulation: EMDR and Bilateral Stimulation for Affect Management”

Filed Under: AMST (Affect Management Skills Training), Blog Tagged With: Affect Management Skills Training, AMST, Bilateral Stimulation, Container Skill, Emotional Regulation, John Omaha, Worry

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About Daniel Davis, LMFT

I create an environment where clients experience their unique significance, authentic empowerment, and profound acceptance and collaborate with clients to identify solutions to their current crises. For more information on how I can help you, contact me today by calling 408-249-0014 or emailing info@danieldavislmft.com. I look forward to speaking with you! Read More…

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