Psychotherapy in San Francisco or Oakland
Jim Walker, MFT
Counseling and Psychotherapy Cell: 510-684-4508
Psychotherapy-Oakland or San Francisco
445 Bellevue Avenue
Suite 104
Oakland, CA 94610
United States
ph: 510-684-4508 cell
jimwalke
Psychotherapy in
Oakland or
San Francisco
Specializations
Scroll down and learn more about my various specializations:
Depression Counseling and Therapy for Reducing Stress
Recovering your aliveness and wholeness from depression and chronic stress is a process of mastery. Through mastering how to manage your emotions, your relationships, your health and other essential aspects of your life more effectively, you'll feel more alive. More whole. We'll help you set the intentions and goals for this. And help you achieve them.
An important part of learning how to manage your distress and depression is a physiological experience, too, not just a mental one. It's somatic (physiological) and experiential. That means having an experience in therapy of feeling the changes that make you feel more alive and whole.
An important part of feeling better involves feeling centered and balanced in your body, thoughts and emotions. With centering you're less overwhelmed, distressed or numbed out in your mind and body.
The latest advances in treatment emphasize the importance of working with felt sensations from the mind-body connections. The overwhelm, shame, depression and stress is being held in the body too, not just the mind.
Couples Counseling
...for my blogging on relationships go to http://blog.couplestherapyeastbay.com/
People seek relationship counseling for various reasons. Often it's because something is really lacking or because something is broken.
In my eleven years as a couples therapist, I've worked with couples who are straight, lesbian, gay, parents, interracial, interfaith, polyamorous (multiple partners) or monogamous.
Here are typical issues couples work on:
Developing communication skills
Breaking through emotional deadlocks
Recovering from betrayal or wounds
Moving through conflicts
Working through differences in commitment
Handling fears about substance use
I also work with couples who have decided to split up. Working with a therapist during a separation can make it less painful and more respectful.
To discuss your issues with me, call me: 510-684-4508 cell
Individual Therapy
Each of us has needed help in her personal growth. Who hasn't needed help coping with life's challenges and traumas? I hope that you have relationships in your life now that help you feel alive and fulfilled.
I offer individual therapy for an array of challenges. Please call me to discuss your issues and how you could benefit from therapy. Let yourself explore this web site and learn more about my approaches to therapy.
I have more than 11 years of experience and training as a therapist working with individuals who on a variety of issues. As a man who has identified as Questioning, Bi, Gay and Straight, I have had life experiences that may help you.
Does your growth as a person spiritual growth? Spiritual exploration and development may also be part of your work in counseling. Let me know if this could be so for you.
Trauma Counseling
PTSD and/or Dissociation
Intense and Chronic Anxiety
Accident Trauma from car accidents or other kinds of accidents
Physical Abuse
Sexual Abuse
Childhood Abuse
What is Trauma?
Life can involve exposure to life-threatening experiences. Accidents, abuse, neglect and other kinds of trust-threatening things happen. As we mature through our childhood, and we're nurtured by caregivers who know how to help us cope with threats, we learn how to deal with life's challenges because our caregivers show us how.
Trauma can result from being exposed to situations and relationships when we were very overwhelmed in ways that felt like our survival or well-being was very threatened. Even if the abuse or threat was not directly life-threatening, the impact of whatever it was (a car accident, a bully, a frightened parent or frightening parent) could have been traumatizing. At those times, or in those relationships, we were not shown how to cope effectively. We had to improvise on our own. Or we froze--went numb--or dissociated.
Is Trauma Affecting Your Life?
Do you often have a hard time focusing?
Do you find yourself suddenly intensely irritable or angry for something that in the past wouldn’t have bothered you?
Do you overreact to things that wouldn’t bother others?
Do you find that your life is constricted by efforts to avoid certain people, places, or things that remind you of past bad experiences?
Do you feel numb or detached too much?
Do you have recurrent dreams or disturbing and intrusive images, thoughts or flashbacks?
If you answered ‘Yes’ to several of these questions, there could be a chance that something traumatized you in the past and is still impacting you.
Understanding How to Work with Trauma
My approach to working with trauma, acute anxiety and abuse is always working at a pace that's right for you. People have different thresholds for tolerating the work of re-balancing their nervous system and healing from traumatic experiences.
I begin working with you by increasing the safety in your life. This brings more stability to you physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Trauma can impact people in wide range of ways. Your healing and wholeness will come from increasing the sense safety and trust you can feel with others, and with yourself.
This comes from using your inner and outer resources. Examples of inner resources are: having a positive mindset, coping skills, patience, being able to identify and name your feelings, or sleeping well. Examples of outer resources are: having trusting relationships, being in a nurturing spiritual community, exercising, counseling or reading helpful books.
By finding and using your resources on a consistent basis, we can develop more safety and trust for you in your daily life. Call me so we can talk about this more: 510-684-4508 cell
Working in Deeper Awareness: Mindfulness in Counseling
Mindfulness is an inner resource. A very simple yet powerful skill. Mindfulness involves slowing down your thinking and feeling through present-moment awareness. In a hectic world, it's very healthy.
It's like meditation but different. Mindfulness in therapy is a very valuable technique for getting more out of therapy.
I can show you how to use mindfulness in therapy. It's a gentle and deep process that turbo-charges the results you can get from therapy. It works gently with directing your consciousness in helpful ways. By slowing down--in the ways that meditation slows you down and focuses you more--being mindful in therapy can actually speed up getting the benefits out of counseling.
There are different ways to learn about mindfulness. This 5 minute clip is about using mindfulness for reducing depression http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8sCX2emO8c
Mindfulness is the skill of paying attention to anything that is occurring in you moment by moment. It's noticing the flow of sounds, sensations, thoughts, images, memories and feelings within you with curiosity and without self-criticism.
Here's a 5 minute clip of college students explaining the basics of mindfulness http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgMT_4uhiZ8&feature=related
Here's a much longer clip about mindfulness with an overview of how mindfulness relates to meditation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf6Q0G1iHBI&feature=related
Working with mindfulness in therapy will make our working together more powerful and quicker. Even though mindfulness involves slowing down the therapeutic process during session, it actually makes therapy more profound beneficial in a shorter amount of time.
Call me for a free phone consultation 510-684-4508. . . or email me at jimwalker@mindbodytherapyservices.com
Consultation
I offer consultation to psychotherapists, counselors, interns and health professionals on using embodied approaches to deepening their work.
Jim Walker, MFT, provides in-depth psychotherapy or brief counseling in Oakland and San Francisco. He works with stress reduction, anxiety management, personal growth, relationships, couples issues, trauma, abuse, depression, shame, anxiety and more. He's experienced working with heterosexual and LGBT people of many different backgrounds, ages and countries of origin.
His offices are close to Berkeley, Piedmont, Alameda, San Leandro, Orinda, El Cerrito, San Carlos, Walnut Creek, Brisbane and Daly City. He is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. MFC 38741.
Jim Walker, MFT, uses an integrative approach to counseling which includes: CBT--cognitive behavioral therapy--cognitive therapy, solution focused therapy, Hakomi, somatic psychotherapy, Sensorimotor psychotherapy, transpersonal therapy, narrative therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy, mindfulness-based psychotherapy and relational therapy.
Psychotherapy-Oakland or San Francisco
445 Bellevue Avenue
Suite 104
Oakland, CA 94610
United States
ph: 510-684-4508 cell
jimwalke
