Joel is a Licensed Clinical Marriage and Family Therapist trained at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas. Marriage and family therapists are trained in systems theory, a way of understanding people in the context of their relationships and as part of the larger system around them. Systemic approaches emphasize each person’s life history, patterns in their families of origin, as well as how they relate to the diverse world around them. All those things impact our complex inner worlds. Joel has extensive experience facilitating healing in relationships. He aims to help people understand and make sense of their experience in their unique contexts.

Bowen Family Therapy

Joel utilizes insights from Murray Bowen’s Family Theory. Bowen therapists emphasize gaining insight into family of origin patterns and helping clients differentiate from the families in which they were raised. Differentiation helps us understand ourselves and act as our most authentic selves as we relate to others.

Attachment

Attachment is a helpful framework for understanding ourselves, how we behave in relationships and regulate emotion. Through attachment, we form a sense of self, achieve differentiation and a sense self-directed autonomy. Attachment theory also lends itself to spirituality, including how we internalize and practice the Presence of God and the goodness we experience in others.

Somatic Approaches

Joel has years of training in somatic approaches to therapy, including Somatic Experiencing. Somatic Experiencing is an approach aimed at renegotiating stressful and traumatic experiences by utilizing the body’s natural responses to threat. Therapy from a somatic approach is useful in helping people gain awareness and activate different channels of their experience to help work through difficulty and experience healing. Many times, it is helpful to re-engage responses to trauma that have been abandoned and need to be reengaged.

Contact Joel to get started with therapy today.