Work with me
I am a graduate of the Institute of Core Energetics, NYC and am currently seeing clients in person in Toronto and over Zoom from anywhere in the world.
In my work with Somatic-Psychotherapy I bring my knowledge and experience from other healing modalities, my acting career and 12 step recovery work.
My Practice:
Interacting with the challenges of modern life as well as the demands of our childhood create incredible defensive structures within us, manifesting in both mind and bodily attitudes. These postures block us from being fully alive as ourselves as well as from our innate healing abilities and the wisdom of the body. We become frozen in our response to the traumas and shocks of life.
We get trapped living cardboard cutout versions of ourselves instead of fully vibrant and spontaneously free. Our mind/bodies are twisted up around expectations and false beliefs, often our nervous systems are stuck in fight, flight or freeze.
These blocks are happening one step below our consciousness and intellect. Using the body as a way into the stuckness is the essence of Somatic-Psychotherapy. Increasing Life Force, releasing trauma and growing consciousness and ability to choose the life you want as opposed to being led unconsciously by wounding patterns. This work is an evolutionary process and non-pathologizing. As the client evolves in their work, presenting symptoms begin to melt away.
Working with the body allows the freeing of energy from defensive patterns manifest on the muscular and cellular level. The autonomic nervous system responds to the cues stored in the body, only after the body reacts does the mind seek to make sense of what’s happened. To fully transcend our limits we must work with both the trauma and the wisdom of the body.
Why somatic work?
Core Energetics is one of many Somatic Psychotherapeutic modalities that expand on the traditional “talk therapy” model to include the experience of the body.
Core Energetics, created by John Pierrakos M.D., focuses on the parts of our lives where we feel stuck, working with the connection between the mind and body, processing blocks and false core-beliefs that keep us from claiming the lives we want.
While incorporating techniques from traditional psychotherapy, CE utilizes breath, movement, mindfulness, body-work, transcendent experience, to process trauma towards evolving one’s sense of purpose and freedom to enjoy and embody all of who they are.
What is Core Energetics?
This is not talk therapy. We will not attempt to intellectualize and talk around your problems. I will steer us away from stories and speculations, towards the feelings and processes that are functioning within you which maintain the person you are today. This method is a study of the self; the implicit beliefs and habitual behaviours that have calcified as attitudes and blocks in both your mind and body. This work is about supporting you in feeling more of who you actually are.
This work requires of you, the client, the ability to slow down and tolerate different states of being. It requires a state of mindfulness and courage to notice, allow and share your present reactions and feelings. It requires a willingness to feel and stay with uncomfortable feelings.
I will frequently be asking you to check in with the feelings and sensations in your body. Reconnecting to the wisdom of the body is key in this growth work. Moving from “story” to “experience” we are able to ‘feel ourselves’ and reconnect with our deeper truths. This connection facilitates healing and integration.
This method requires a special kind of spaciousness and connection between therapist and client. It requires the client’s focus and attention to be trained on themselves and their reactions. It requires moving beyond the normal way of talking and being together.
The work is an evolutionary model, meaning I believe there is noting wrong with you. The work we do together is about growing not fixing. The path is focused towards ever increased self responsibility and more tolerance of feelings. The evolution is from asleep to awake. From separation to connection.
The work is rooted in the Somatic field of research. I am not making diagnosis based on what can be tested and measured from the outside. I will be asking you to do the work from the inside. The ‘Somatic Self’ is only accessible to oneself. The whole world of feelings and beliefs, fears and blocks, your inner functioning and logic can only be unlocked by you. By bringing increased attention, mindfulness and consciousness to ones own being. You will be able to shift paradigms that no one else can. My role is only as guide in this process.
It’s hard work and requires patience and courage.
What to expect
My Journey…
I am a graduate of the 4-Year Practitioner Certification Program from The Institute of Core Energetics, New York.
The seeds of my work with Somatic Healing were planted when, as an actor, I began training with the legendary Sandra Seacat in 2005. I was introduced to Feldenkrais technique (a therapeutic body-awareness method) and hours of creative “matwork” where I first discovered the mind-body connection. I began to understand how my ideas, my need for validation and my disconnection from my body’s reality, were not where I wanted to create my work from. Sandra taught me to allow expression to happen from a deeper place. To trust that my body knew what it was doing.
Through years of commitments to spiritual and yogic practices I further focused my attention on the realities of the body-mind. I began to experience how my ego defences and distortions were made manifest in my physical habits and structures. I experienced my resistance to my own feelings and how I shut myself off from various parts of my body and how I had retreated into living life solely from my mind.
My work as an actor evolved into teaching acting and I became more fascinated by psychology and character structure as well as the space between teacher and student. I studied how trauma and our resulting self images created “intention” and “character”. I could see that, in part, the work of an actor was freeing themself from the “character” they were habitually playing in life. This development allowed the actor the ability to step into other character-experiences.
Finding Somatic Psychotherapy and training in Core Energetics, has been a natural step in both my own healing and working with others. I’m grateful to have found a modality that includes psychology, somatics and spirituality in a working model that’s focused on evolution while learning the tools to work one-on-one in a safe and effective way.
Dov Tiefenbach CCEP
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