Counselling

Individual Adult Counselling

Myrna does early trauma resolution work with adults in the individual one-to-one session format, especially around prenatal and birth or very early issues. She also works with women around the whole range of women's reproductive issues such as infertility, adoption preparation and support, pregnancy and child loss, abortion, prenatal or postnatal depression. She specializes in depression and anxiety treatment for women across the life span.

Signs that Adults are carrying early adverse imprints
(early trauma imprints)

• Experiences of depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder and other difficulties maintaining a positive mood, excitement and sense of self esteem and purpose in your life
• Difficulty forming and maintaining a healthy primary relationship with a partner
• Aggression that is acted out in destructive or criminal ways
• Excessive timidity in everyday life
• Inappropriate fight or flight or freeze responses in current non-threatening circumstances, and/or difficulty mobilizing in the face of actual danger
• Difficulty in setting limits and boundaries
• Difficulty responding in compassionate, empathetic ways to self or others
• Confusion, difficulty with decision making
• Excessive risk taking behaviors  eg drug addictions, really extreme sports, risky sexual behaviors, dangerous driving
• Being irresponsible re one's own physical safety or as a way of being in relationship
• Blaming  or shaming others regularly as a way to cope with life
• Difficulty sequencing - intention, preparation, action, follow through or integration
• Difficulty establishing self as an independent adult in the world, with a support system
• Major difficulties in parenting that result in neglectful or abusive behaviors towards children

 Benefits of one-to-one therapy for adults: An attachment approach

• Strengthen your sense of safety and resourcefulness in the world
• Resolve shock and trauma
• Repattern your basic template in life to more ease and grace daily
• Deepen your connection to your authentic self and those you care about in your life
• Enjoy your body
• Become healthier and happier
• Change mechanical (or automatic) patterns into creative choices
• Learn to cultivate healing time,  stillness and spaciousness
• Change reactivity patterns in yourself and in your relationships into responsiveness
• Spent more time in the flow and less time in constricted states
• Identify and work with family of origin patterns so they aren't running you today (deepen your ‘witness' and your ability to choose)
• Create space for empathetic responses to yourself and other people/beings
• Slow the pace so you can actually feel and integrate your life experiences

Phone Consultations

Myrna does phone consultations with individuals from around the world for English speakers.  Often, these are with people she has met with face to face in a Process Workshop but if not, effective counseling is still possible.  Please email her at myrna [at] myrnamartin.net if you would like to get more information or to set up an appointment.

LENS Neurofeedback

1. In an intake session Myrna and the client will discuss the usefulness of LENS Neurofeedback to the client's particular history and current experience and if appropriate, do an initial session. The second and possibly the third session will be used to create a brain map of the client which will serve both for diagnosis, the treatment plan, and also as a reference to check later whether there is progress, in conjunction with the client's actual experience. LENS neurofeedback is suitable for young children. Myrna would discuss the usefulness and appropriateness with the parents and together they would decide it this could be helpful for the child. Parents would be present at all sessions and keep a careful record of their child's behaviors during the course of treatment. This treatment can be very helpful for children who have been given a diagnosis of ADD/H or ADD.

2. The brain map is a quantative EEG recording done from readings from 21 points on the head.. This is a series of maps where for each measured spot the average level of activity is shown. The brain map is compared to a database to determine areas of over- and under activity compared to the average people of the client's age and sex. On the basis of the signs and symptoms the client reports and the actual brain map a course of therapy is chosen. This involves an electromagnetic feedback (no stronger than a radio wave) on the EEG sites on the head that need to become more or less active for specific frequencies. During the therapy the client gets the feedback that their specific brain needs to help it adjust the brain wave frequencies and therefore improve.

The Low Energy Neurofeedback System (LENS) uses an electromagnetic field as the carrier wave for the feedback. With this method, the EEG leads serve as bi-directional conduits for both the brainwaves and the feedback signals. This neurofeedback method is distinct in that the duration of treatment for ADD/ADHD, depression, PTSD, and seizures is shorter; and the system settings and electrode sites change from client to client, and for any client, change from time to time.

With this method, the brain wave activity (at both the sites in the brain that have problems in isolation, and at sites that act in coherence systems) can be enhanced, towards a more optimal pattern, in a predictable manner.

Treatment benefits include:

Tangible clinical improvements are typically noted within 3 to 6 sessions. Reductions in brain wave amplitude and variability will often be noted within the first session. Treatments can alter mood, energy, cognitive functioning, attention, movement, confidence, sleep, and attention. Clients stand a reasonable chance of improvement, even long after physical and psychological trauma.

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If you want more information or to set up an appointment email myrna at myrna [at] myrnamartin.net

Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy

Myrna has been a practicing licensed biodynamic craniosacral therapist for ten years. She is a graduate of the Colorado School of Energy Medicine's two year biodynamic training, and is a Registered Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist with the Biodynamic Craniosacral Association of North America. She is currently a teacher in training with this association, and is assisting two different two year trainings that are presently underway.

Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy: A holistic approach

Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy takes a whole-person approach to healing and the inter -connections of mind, body and spirit are deeply acknowledged.

This therapy can help your over-active nervous system to re-set itself so you can experience greater rest, peace, and wholeness. Instead of constantly running in "fight or flight" mode, you can slow down and relax in a way that supports self-repair and rejuvenation functions like sleep and digestion. This is particularly helpful in releasing trauma patterns and recovering from the daily stresses of living in the modern fast paced world. As your nervous system relaxes and functions better, you may feel more at ease in every aspect of your life, work, body, and relationships.

It is an effective form of treatment for a wide range of illnesses, helping to create the optimal conditions for health, encouraging vitality and facilitating a sense of well-being. It is suitable for people of all ages including babies, children and the elderly, and can be effective in acute or chronic situations. It is extremely useful for babies who have experienced a difficult birth as it gently helps them resolve any residue from the birth process.

The emphasis in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy is to help resolve the trapped forces that underlie and govern patterns of disease and fragmentation in both body and mind. This involves the practitioner "listening through the hands" to the body's subtle rhythms and any patterns of inertia or congestion. Through the development of subtle palpatory skills and the ability to enter a deep quiet presence in themselves, the practitioner can read the story of the body, identify places where issues are held and then follow the natural priorities for healing as directed by the client¹s own physiology. The client's physiology responds to the quiet resonance in the practitioner to support re-setting it to a slower, calmer pace that is optimal for healing and expression the health that is already present.

The intention of treatment is to facilitate the expression of the health that is present in the client's system and so enhance the body's own self-healing and self-regulating capabilities. This is done in a non-invasive way as the practitioner subtly and gently encourages the conditions that allow for the reemergence of motion and health. Furthermore, the practitioner's deep and clear quality of presence can become a reflective mirror for the client and an invaluable cue for their potential for change.

Is BCST safe for infants and children:? Children respond well to BCST because it is gentle, non-invasive, and?effective in ways they can intuitively recognize. Even small children quickly get used to the work as they develop trust in their practitioner. Pre-verbal children may actually direct the practitioner's hands to areas of discomfort. Children easily show the dynamics of their experience through movement and sounds. Much subtle work can be done by the practitioner during "playtime" in which the child is observed and assisted in completing unresolved challenges. Parents are often astounded at the way a crabby, hyperactive, or miserable child will fall into deep relaxation or sleep during treatment. The challenge, of course, is the busy toddler who won't lie still. Here the parent can help out by holding the child as the practitioner makes even brief contacts on the spine, head, and sacrum. A little goes a long way with a child. Whatever can be resolved during infancy or childhood, often in only a few sessions, can potentially prevent decades of medical and psychological treatment later on. Resolution of misaligned forces makes us less accident-prone, because we are not "off-balance".

Is BCST safe during pregnancy:?BCST is not only safe but recommended during pregnancy, as it calms the nervous system of both mother and child, encouraging emotional bonding which can otherwise be short-circuited due to pre-natal and birth stresses and trauma. The Biodynamic approach can contact the Primal Midline of the infant's delicate nervous system - the midline that holds our Originality, the state of perfection that enables us to be less affected by negative influences from our genetics. Also, although the growing prenate is highly conscious, s/he does not know the difference between mother's thoughts and feelings and its own, so when Mom's system is soothed and balanced during pregnancy, baby gains huge benefits.

What does a biodynamic craniosacral session look like?

Most often we will begin talking about your current experience and set an intention for the work of the session. Myrna will create a safe and comfortable atmosphere, and then usually you (adults) will lie down, fully clothed and covered with a blanket on a massage table. Myrna will, in collaboration with you, hold different parts of your body, often your head (cranium). sacrum or feet, always checking in to make sure you are comfortable and feeling safe as we negotiate our contact. Myrna will ask some questions about what you are experiencing as she tracks your subtle rhythms. Some sessions are mostly quiet, some involve more dialogue. By the end of the session people feel more open, relaxed, rejeuvenated and often areas of pain or discomfort have shifted.

Couples Counselling

Myrna sees many couples who want to work on reconnecting or deepening their relationship and learning effective communication strategies that support both their connection in their relationship and their individuation.

Myrna will provide a safe environment in which to do the following:

• Deepen the attachment bond between you ...create a resonance of love and safety between you that will enhance and nurture both people
• Recommit to clear communication and clear boundaries
• Learn to safely express feelings with each other
• Learn to make requests effectively
• Learn tools to work through conflict without blaming and shaming each other
• Learn and practice the power of positive intention
• Learn to co create agreements rather than running on old unilateral patterns of control and feeling controlled
• Understand how each person's early experiences are getting between you, learn and practice the tools needed to stay in present time and in the adult self .
• Reconnect with or enhance feelings of love, appreciation and respect
• Develop effective co parenting strategies that both parents can support
• Learn to skillfully self-disclose in a way that your partner can take in your experience

Separation Counselling and Parenting Agreements

Myrna has successfully helped many families develop ways of co-parenting that promote the highest good for the children and the parents in families that are changing their form when the parents are 'uncoupling'. She has a depth of experience working with parents who are co-parenting their children while living in separate households in a wide variety of new family structures.