Making the choice to see a counselor can be a difficult step. When clients arrive to their first session, they often feel nervous and vulnerable. Because of this, I spend a lot of my focus in the first few sessions creating an environment of compassion and understanding. As your therapist, it is important that you know I am right there beside you in your struggle. I see my role as a trusted confidante and guide who will not only shine a warm light in the dark places but also offer practical tools and strategies to accompany you to the other side of what you’re going through. I strive to create a setting where you feel safe, cared for, comfortable, and curious. When these four elements are present, I believe change can occur.
My style is interactive, experiential, creative, and direct. I am not the kind of therapist who only sits there quietly and listens. You are the expert of your life and, in support of that, I take an active approach in providing feedback, suggestions, and recommendations to help improve your mental health. As an experiential therapist, I will often provide in-session exercises that assist you in deepening your understanding of both the nature of your problems and your options for solving them.
Although talking is an important part of therapy and is part of my background and training (including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Motivational Interviewing), I firmly believe that talking has its limitations. At times, it is far too easy to talk ourselves in circles and verbalizing our stories may also keep us from getting to the heart of the matter. This is why I chose to pursue my Master’s degree in Somatic Body Psychotherapy and obtained training in other non-talk centered modalities. This means my counseling services offer a wide variety of approaches, including:
Somatic Therapy: a type of therapy which operates from the belief that emotional issues (e.g. stress, trauma, anxiety, grief, depression) manifest as physical symptoms and that healing occurs when the mind-body connection is strengthened. Somatic therapy supports clients in connecting to “the messages of the body” in order to provide deep understanding, healing, and transformation.
Image Transformation Therapy
Image Transformation Therapy (ImTT) is a gentle yet highly effective approach to healing trauma. Clients are led in a simple guided breathing and visualization technique that comprehensively releases all aspects of a traumatic event without needing to reexperience the event itself during processing. By the end of processing, clients regularly report that the disturbing memory now feels like a one-dimensional photo from the past--neutral and drained of all power to hurt or harm them. Clients leave ImTT sessions feeling light, energized, and freed from the burdens of the traumatic event. For more information about ImTTT, please visit: https://www.imttherapy.com/EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing): an extensively researched treatment that has been found to be widely effective in helping people resolve traumatic symptoms and “move past your past”. EMDR has also proven effective for treatment of anxiety, depression, addictions, and complicated grief. For some clients, this form of therapy can produce rapid results, and many notice a significant shift in as few as three to four sessions. For more information about the benefits of EMDR, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIJZQAr9nQo
Mindfulness: the practice of developing awareness of the present moment. When engaging in mindfulness, you begin to notice thoughts, sensations, and emotions. Paying attention in this way helps you not to get swept away by things you normally might. Instead, you learn how to respond rather than react to challenging situations. This video explains how mindfulness helps: https://youtu.be/w6T02g5hnT4
Sandtray Therapy: a form of therapy where a client uses miniature figures and objects to build a scene in the sand that represents their issues or current struggle. Through the act of creating scenes and worlds with the miniature figures, sandtray therapy can often help clients find a new way to look at old or ongoing problems or conflicts.
Creative Arts: Engages our imagination by using creative expression to explore and understand our experiences and issues. Art-based interventions allows access to places within ourselves beyond words.
Although the problems that bring you to therapy are serious, I don’t believe that effective therapy needs to be serious all of the time. Creativity and laughter are wonderful tools to help facilitate healing and I find both are important aspects of my work with clients. Tough problems often need creative solutions, which is why I like to offer a variety of approaches for my clients. My counseling services are tailored to meet your needs and goals and the look and feel of each session will vary. For some people, we may do grounding and visualization exercises to teach them how to feel calm in their mind and body; for others, they may learn how to identify and manage overwhelming emotions that show up in their body.
No problem is insurmountable, especially when tackled within the caring and skillful environment of a therapy relationship. With over 20 years of experience serving clients from all walks of life, I can help you examine and release outdated patterns that no longer serve you and together we can create a new template for thriving in your life.
Lalo Rivera, MA, LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor with a private practice in San Antonio. She has been working in the mental health and social services field for twenty-five years. Her work describing the somatic experience of formerly incarcerated clients struggling with addiction was recently published in the book, Oppression and the Body: Roots, Resistance, and Resolutions. Lalo specializes in trauma recovery and has worked previously at various sexual assault agencies in San Francisco, Boulder, and San Antonio. Additionally, she has worked as a clinician with clients in the criminal justice system struggling with addictions and trauma-related issues.