Integrated Belonging Therapy (IBT) is based in Los Angeles and available for residents throughout the State of California.
This page provides details about the services offered and how to get started. I offer three types of treatment: individual, couple, and group therapy. Additional services include workshops, various location options, public speaking engagements, and reduced fees for those facing financial challenges. Each treatment type includes a description of the process, a general treatment plan, and a diagram outlining the initial weeks in therapy. I welcome all questions, which you can send directly from the Contact page.
Getting started is simple
Schedule a Consultation
A free 20-minutes consultation for us to connect and I can learn abut you.
We’ll Make a Plan
Together, we will identify your needs, set goals, and create a personalized plan.
Become more secure, self-accepting, and self-confident. Increase connection to others.
Build Belonging
Want your therapy session here? It’s an option.
Location Options
Therapy sessions are typically held online via Zoom. A link is sent when you book your first session to be used for all subsequent sessions. For Southern California residents, in-person sessions are available upon request. In-person sessions are generally held at my office in Los Angeles. Other options for meeting in-person are in-house visits, where I come to you, and out in nature, at the beach, park, or hiking trail of your choosing. Both options require signing an additional consent form.
Groups meet online, with a few exceptions. Group location is included with each group description. Please take note of the group location before signing up.
Individual Therapy
Overview: How IBT Helps
For individual treatment, Integrated Belonging Therapy (IBT) emphasizes building a sense of belonging within yourself, finding your purpose, contributing to others, and updating your expectations. The initial tasks will focus on building belonging within yourself. You will learn how to validate and sooth yourself and be more compassionate with yourself. I will help you discover the value in each of your parts. Our focus here will be to work toward reorienting you from an extrinsic to intrinsic orientation. In the next stage, we will explore barriers to belonging, uncover and challenge your expectations of loneliness, rejection, and exclusion. We will focus on generating new experiences and perspectives that replace your old expectations and initiate a positive feedback loop with a trajectory of increasing belonging and social connection.
However, this is a general structure, our priority is on addressing your specific needs and concerns – whatever they may be. We will tailor your treatment plan to your needs. Depending on what's most important to you, we can make building belonging a central focus, a secondary aspect, or exclude it altogether. While IBT is based on the scientific discovery that belonging is a fundamental human need, strengthening it benefits health and longevity, while simultaneously reducing loneliness minimizes the myriad negative consequences loneliness has on biopsychosocial well-being. However, your therapy might take a different path based on your needs – and that's perfectly fine. Your needs always come first, and we prioritize them over everything else.
What to Expect
The first few weeks of treatment are spent on assessment, setting treatment goals, and developing a personalized treatment plan. Assessment includes discussing general and relevant background information, Allen et al.’s (2021) four interrelated components of belonging, and anything else you think is important for me to know so I that I can help you best. At the end of the assessment, we will present our conceptualizations of the problem. This will help us set the goals for treatment, which we will use to collaboratively create a preliminary personalized treatment plan. We will regularly track your goals, set new ones when called for, and make updates to the treatment plan when needed.
Treatment Outline
Couple Therapy
Is IBT Right for Your Relationship?
Have you ever felt isolated from your partner? You might have been in the same room and yet still felt miles apart. It's a common misconception that people in relationships don't experience loneliness. Many couples go through periods in their relationship when they feel like something's amiss. When couples experience this, they should not assume that they and their partner are growing apart. Rather, this is likely a deepening disconnection, often triggered by external forces. When partners feel disconnected from each other, they often retreat into their thoughts. They can become more engaged with the stories they are telling themselves then with their partner.
Overview: How IBT Helps Couples
For disconnected couples, treatment has four general areas of focus: connection, differentiation, trust, and romance. Connection, to help partners become friends again and have fun together. Differentiation, because both partners need to maintain their sense of self as an autonomous individual, otherwise one or both can begin to feel smothered, and feeling smothered is not sexy. To differentiate, there needs to be trust, which is the most important element in any relationship. Last, romance, this is crucial. Romance sets the relationship apart from all other relationships, it keeps the relationship exciting, and partners interested. I take the perspective that trusting relationships are built on balanced give-and-take, an additional factor we will be paying attention to. Similar to individual treatment, this is a general frame,
What to Expect
What to expect: The first few weeks of treatment are spent on assessment, setting treatment goals, and developing a personalized treatment plan. Assessment includes discussing general and relevant background information, the four areas of focus, and anything else you think is important for me to know so I that I can help you best. During the assessment, I will meet with each partner individually for a full session. After meeting with both of you independently, I will present my conceptualization of what is happening in your relationship. We will use this to collaboratively set treatment goals and create your unique treatment plan. We will update your goals and treatment plan as things unfold and unexpected surprises might arise.
Group Therapy
Group Therapy, The Heart and Soul of IBT
There is no better place to deepen your sense of belonging than in a therapeutic group. Initially, groups may seem daunting and intimidating because you find yourself in an intimate room surrounded by strangers, feeling as if they can see right through you. Raw, exposed, and vulnerable, it feels like your most shameful secrets might spill out for everyone to see, both isolating and like you are display at the same time, you become overly self-aware and perceive all eyes are on you. In reality, every other group member is experiencing the same thing. This is because, as you will discover, we are not that different from one another.
During those initial moments when group members are still strangers, it is entirely normal for individuals to feel nervous, fearing potential embarrassment or rejection. However, these fears fade within a few weeks as people begin to connect, and bonds start to form. Over time, the relationships forged in group therapy can become some of the strongest and most meaningful.
There is something extraordinary about the dynamics of group therapy that allows for the potential development of a profound closeness among members, a connection that can only happen within a group setting. The close connection between group members can grow so powerful you can feel it pumping through your body, filling you with life. You leave group feeling revitalized and energized, ready to take on all the struggles of life when you are out in the wild.
New group listings coming soon.