Services

Providing Solutions: Getting to the Root of the Problem

A good theoretical orientation as well as instinct are essential ingredients in the working through process of therapy. I focus on earlier life experiences as well as later in life experiences and believe that we “wear our past”. My evaluation and therapy is based on understanding how your unresolved material remains active in current behavioral choices and decision making.

Symptoms Take On Various Forms

Physical Discomfort

There are times when people come into therapy because their coping skills no longer work. They are ridden with anxiety/depression/agitation/insomnia/fatigue or some other physical form that causes great distress. When issues are unaddressed over time, the coping mechanisms give way to symptoms. For some, symptoms appear from nowhere and feel unrelated to anything presently going on. While others suffer from long standing symptomology. In either case, symptoms (unless there is a medical basis)  can often be   a byproduct of ignoring feelings, trauma, disappointments, to name a few.  Too often emotional and /or physical distress is unexplored but  internally not forgotten material. My approach is to awaken, address and understand issues that remain dormant but continue to control the individual.

Behavioral Acting Out

At times repressed material is not experienced in terms of physical discomfort but rather is expressed through acting out patterns i.e., marital cheating, some form of self-medication, and aggression to name a few. These patterns are passive aggressive in nature. The acting out is often destructive and  can lead to long term damage toward self and undermining the trust within the relationship. Yet there is an avoidance to directly address deeper issues. There are a myriad of reasons why people cheat or self-medicate. There is usually an underlying  reason as to why we do what we do. My approach is to understand the underlying issues driving a person to make destructive choices and replace unhealthy patterns with higher functioning alternatives. This is accomplished through the desire to address issues, work through issues, and learning to react in a more appropriate manner than simply acting out or numbing ones emotions.

Narcissism

This category in my opinion is greatly misunderstood. With any condition there are degrees of severity and with narcissism this is certainly true. Let me be clear that dealing with a narcissist is both possible and in many cases, therapy  leads the individual to choose  less reactive behaviors. Therapy begins by identifying and understanding the narcissist’s emotional injuries.  There are certain behaviors that are associated with narcissism such as how a person reacts to disappointment, input, or how they personalize a situation. All these reactions fall under the heading of “narcissistic injury” with the narcissist reading much more into a situation than is really there. Once the injury has occurred the response maybe extreme for the situation. The narcissistic needs to understand that their reaction is beyond what is warranted for the situation. They also need to  learn more appropriate ways to deal with feelings. It is helpful for the partner  to learn how to approach a narcissistic in a way that will not intensify the triggers. 

Eating Disorders

One’s behavior tells a story about where the person is stuck and how they act out their emotions. People that suffer from eating disorders turn their repressed issues toward the self. For whatever the background dynamics, there is an inability, a fear, a distrust to feel, speak, and be themselves.

As such emotions are kept hidden from awareness but never leaves the psyche. Those unaddressed issues find expression thru acting out in very unconscious ways. Eating too much (binging), purging, or depriving oneself of nutrition are avenues that serve only to distract an individual from their true struggles. People that suffer from this condition focus on superficial issues such as body image, weight, fitting in with others, etc. The real focus is on understanding the deep seeded core issues.

There are several dynamics that need to be considered when treating eating disorders. First and foremost stabilizing the physical self. Second, individuals need to look past the eating issue to understand what is being ignored, numbed and not addressed. When the focus gets redirected toward the real issues the need for acting out toward self can be  diminished.

Why Love Stops, How Love Stays

She puts in one book a complete approach to understanding both the individual and the couple.

Staying Connected to Your Partner

How to overcome fear or uncertainty in the way you love and commit.

Call for an Appointment:
1-760-340-1114

Dr. Barbara Kreedman’s focus is to assess what the real problems are, where they comes from and how to either resolve or gain control over unwarranted emotions and reactions.

Dr. Barbara Kreedman is a Psychotherapist with  a Clinical Social Work license providing Teletherapy services
throughout California.

Barbara Kreedman, Ph.D., LCSW

(760) 340-1114

a4therapy@gmail.com