Individual Therapy
Bust of Tutela from the Martigny mithraeum - symbol of guardianship and protection.
Some words on nature, beauty, and falling in love.
“What if our only job is to fall in love with nature?”
“We can’t be separate from nature, we are nature.”
“Descartes made the world dead. Removed the soul. Made litter.”
“What would make you not want to destroy something would be your sense, your appreciation of its beauty. If we start with the world as something beautiful, we would want what you do with anything beautiful…you fall in love with it. And by falling in love with the world, you want to keep it around. And that’s the simplest answer to the problem of the world”
“Our job on the earth is to fall in love with it. And you only fall in love with it if you are aesthetically alive to it.”
“We’re not in love with the world now because we’re anesthetized."
“The human being is on the planet in order to appreciate it, that’s all. You don’t have to DO anything, you have to appreciate it. And what you do with it should add to its beauty.”
“The feeling of loss is that we don’t know what it is we’ve lost. What we’ve lost is the beauty of the world. And we make up for it by attempting to own the world, possess the world.”
What is your Nature?
A core part of my therapy with individuals is the deeper understanding, connection, and love of our Nature.
This love of Nature calls on an instinct to protect all ways of being – even and especially the aspects of human nature that the mental health field has often sought to eradicate, numb, cure.
This does not mean that the affliction is off the hook or that we glorify it.
We will look at the concrete impacts of your depression, ADHD perfectionism, rumination, procrastination, or whatever constellation of symptoms are causing you pain.
We will also greet these manifestations of self with sincere curiosity and compassion.
I treat these diagnoses as a double edged-sword – capable of intelligence and beauty as well as destruction.
Like Chesterton’s Fence – unless you can explain why a fence was erected, don’t tear it down. And even then…
Rufino Tamayo, Dualidad (Duality), 1964. Vinylite on linen. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City.