MyTherapistNewYork
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drdemarco Therapist tells all...okay some.
I have spent much of my life curious about human nature and the principles that
organize our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. My ongoing search has led me to
an in-depth study of Western Psychology, culminating in a master’s in Counseling
Psychology and the pursuit of licensing as a Marriage and Family Therapist. I have
also dedicated well over a decade to my yoga practice and a sincere examination of
the Tantrik arts and sciences, emanating from various spiritual systems.
My discoveries have convinced me of the ever-evolving nature of our psyches and
our innate flexibility for change and transformation (for better or for worse.) I
believe that it is every human’s birthright to gracefully experience a full range of
human emotion and ultimately extract as much beauty and pleasure from life as
possible.
My warm and eclectic style of therapy seeks to deepen the relationship with one’s
authentic self, as well as to others and the surrounding environment. To meet the
needs of each, unique individual, I offer many methods and techniques to manage
the stressors and symptoms of modernity and assist clients in achieving rich and
meaningful lives.
Peter Gevisser was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. He graduated from Brown University with a BA in English and American Civilization in 1994. He then moved to London where he trained as an actor, and had been working professionally as such, in London and the USA, until he enrolled at Antioch University, where he graduated with a Masters in Clinical Psychology last April. He recently completed his training as an Imago relationship therapist and is under supervision with Dr. DeMarco as a final step towards becoming a licensed marriage and family therapist in New York.
The focus of his work draws from these diverse disciplines.
Couples and Relationships
Peter is a trained Imago couples therapist. He works directly with couples to help them listen to each other. While this may sound elementary and self-evident, very often, couples experience difficulty because they’ve lost the ability to communicate effectively with each other. This means developing skills to listen without becoming reactive and defensive, and to talk, without being critical or aggressive. It is through re-finding empathy for one’s partner that this may be achieved. Peter will help you to develop these skills in a safe, non judgmental atmosphere. His work has shown that, in the ability to work through obstacles, couples emerge stronger, and with a new, deeper appreciation for each other. The romance that they find is often deeper and stronger than the original burst of first meeting and falling in love.
(The seminal book on Imago Therapy is written by it’s founder, Harville Hendrix: “Getting the Love you Want”.)
Creativity
As a result of his appreciation for the power of creativity, he works with patients to rekindle lost passions. Often clients struggling with addiction - be it sex, drugs, or alcohol - benefit from substituting these “negative” addictions for positive rituals that delve into creativity. Peter will work with the client to explore what creativity means to each individual client.
He also works with students and professionals who may be experiencing “blocks”, encouraging them to reignite their passions.
Grief and Bereavement
Peter works with clients to move through grief and bereavement, using creative forces. Creativity may involve writing, painting, drawing, music, cooking; or anything else that the client defines as creative. Creativity may also be a simple act of appreciation. Peter will work with clients to find ways in which they may honor their lost loved ones through creativity. Different cultures use specific rituals to honor their lost loved ones. It is often the case, in the Western World, that rituals have been lost in the rush to “get back on ones’ feet” and “get back to work”. While these mantras have their value, it is equally important to balance them with taking the time to honor our lost loved ones. He has a strong belief that one doesn’t “get over” loss, but learns to live with it - and in so doing, one’s life may become richer and deeper for it.
The Safe Space
Freud coined the phrase for psychotherapy as “The Talking Cure”. Hendrix has taken from this and extended the definition to “The Listening Cure”. Therapy is also about what we choose to do. “The Doing Cure”. Peter hopes to provide a safe space wherein which the client feels free to explore, focusing further on what (s)he may “do” to work with these discoveries. Through his extensive training as an actor, Peter is deeply aware of the different messages our bodies convey in space. His hope is that, by creating a safe space for the client inside the therapy room; the world outside, will seem a little less overwhelming and scary.
I believe that all therapy must be done in a culturally conscious & sensitive way. I work with clients in a holistic manner that is non-judgmental, compassionate, culturally aware and tailored to the specific needs of each individual client. I believe that good therapy enables us to thrive in the world, not just survive. As a therapist, I am dedicated to creating a safe space where clients feel comfortable to access the strength required to overcome hurdles, transcend boundaries and effect positive personal change.
I have a Masters degree in Psychological Counseling from Columbia University and a Masters degree in Anthropology from the University of Oxford. I am working towards my license as an LMHC and my training has including individual and group counseling that spans behavioral, mood, substance, adjustment, identity and relationship related issues.
At a personal level, I have lived and studied all over the world including India, Australia, UK, Canada and the U.S. and integrate these experiences into my work with clients. Besides my passion for therapy, I love singing, playing the guitar, dancing, yoga, and drawing. I believe that each of us has a creative aspect to ourselves that can be a wonderful source of strength and inspiration that we can draw from at all times, not just in times of crisis. As a therapist I hope to encourage my clients to access their creative selves so that they can be more of who they already are.
El modelo ABC es un ejercicio de la terapia REBT. Con este ejercicio uno puede analizar y disputar los pensamientos irracionales con la realidad. También pueden hacen este ejercicio con cualquier situación. El modelo ABC nos guía como ser mas tolerantes y flexible sobre eventos desafortunados.
El primero se llama el “A” y esta parte significa el evento de activación. El evento de activación es la situación que te enoja. Por ejemplo, “yo no pase el examen de matemática”. El “A” es solamente factual… Que fue lo que paso? La segunda parte se llama el “B” y significa creencias sobre la situación… como “yo soy una idiota porque no pase mi examen.” “Yo tenia que pasar el examen con un 100.” Las creencias son las que causan la tercer parte que se llama el “C.” El “C” significa las consecuencias. Las consecuencias se manifiestan en dos maneras, emotivas y de conductas. Las consecuencias emotivas son “me siento deprimida, y estupida”. Las consecuencias conductas son que tal vez uno se esconda, o abusa de un substancia como el alcohol. La parte final, el “D”, significa el debate y disputa donde uno puede analizar las creencias irracionales. Si uno se siente que es una idiota… puede disputar “es verdad que soy una idiota por este evento?”
Okay por favor busca un papel y lápiz y sigan este ejemplo:
A (la activación de el evento): No pase el examen del matemática.
B (creencias): Yo soy una idiota porque no pase mi examen. Mi madre me castigara. Perdere mi beca. Mi vida se acaba.
C (Consecuencias): Emotivo: me siento deprimida, y estupida.
Conductas: me escondo, o bebo mi mamajuana.
D (debate y disputa): Quien dice que yo soy un idiota solo porque no pase un solo examen.
Es de verdad que yo soy completemente estupida por que no pase este examen? (claro que no!)
Lo peor que puede pasar es que mi mama me grite? Es esto el fin del mundo?
Estoy seguro que perdere me beca? Puedo leer el futuro? Aunque pierda me beca, esto me matara?
E (efecto): Si tu crees que las cosas que te dices a ti mismo en el punto D, entonces no tiene sentido deprimirte y sentirte estupida. Si tu crees en estas cosas, tiene mas sentido sentirte irritable, decepionado, triste. Pero con estas emociones, puedes hacer algo mas productivo como estudiar, pedir ayuda, etc.
Para concluir, el modelo ABC es una manera bastante útil para analizar nuestro pensamientos y cambiar nuestras conductas.
Suzy is joining our team at MyTherapistNewYork. Suzy is a marriage and family therapist from California who is pursuing supervision and licensure in New York. Suzy uses concepts from Eastern thought (such as yoga therapy, ayurvedic counseling, etc) to inform her work with individuals and couples. Under Dr. DeMarco’s supervision, Suzy draws from her studies and experiences to help clients learn how to be their best selves. If you’re interested in working with Suzy, feel free to schedule through the website at http://www.mytherapistnewyork.info, http://www.mytherapist.info (just click the Schedule link), or call us by clicking the Contact link. Interested in knowing more about Suzy’s style? Join our Meetup group page by clicking the link at the top. We look forward to working with you!
We do not accept insurance- And here is why…
Right now there is a discussion on one of the mental health groups on LinkedIn about the problems with the DSM and using insurance in therapy. Â I wanted to share a few of the exchanges here in response to a post by Hilding Ohrstrom, LCPC:
To DSM or Not to DSM, that is the question…..
Earlier in my career, I used to think the DSM process was a terrific one that helped to ensure we were talking the same language. I am no longer convinced that is true. Now I see children taking atypical meds when nothing else has been tried, anxiety misdiagnosed as ADHD, children diagnosed with bipolar, seniors medicated with anti-psychotics because they disagree with nursing home staff, normal grief mis-diagnosed as major depression, recurrent severe, drug dependence misdiagnosed as bipolar…..and the list goes on. It seems to me that if the DSM process is so central to the work as it has seemingly become, that the assumptions underpinning it should be re-examined. Otherwise we may be doing the equivalent of putting brakes on a truck that has no engine or transmission. There are many books on shelves. That does not mean they are good books, just that they exist!
My response: Â I used to be leery of the “coaching” model, where people with who knows what as training could be doing “therapy”. The longer I’m in practice, though, the more I find myself moving away from the medical model, and more to the “coaching” model. I’ve made my rates all on a sliding scale, am moving away from working with insurance (and educate my clients as to why), and I focus on doing good, evidence-based work with my clients that has little to do with anything in the DSM. I feel like 10 years of practice has led me to the conclusion that, at least in my own experience, that people largely aren’t mentally ill, but when stressed, find all sorts of unhealthy ways to cope. I don’t need to call it adjustment disorder and get 60 bucks from an insurance company, when I can do the same work without putting it into a medical/pathological paradigm.
New Zealand Psychologist Amberley Meredith responds:  Michael I quite agree with all you have to say, even down to the leery view of coaching I once had, I now see what gifts it has to offer us and I am afraid bits of paper saying someone is a psychologist has never meant they are a sound and well balanced clinician. You get dodgy people in all trades and services, a far better measure of someone’s skill is not in what they study, but in what they know, how they feel and their people skills.
I think mental illness is exactly as you say, it is not more than a breakdown in the body of energy and this energy has some how become corrupted or interrupted, this then impacts the transmission of signals in the body that then impact on our cells, which impacts on our ability to create proteins that create behaviours, which create feelings. I have been loving the work of Bruce Lipton and neuroplasticity of late and the concepts of retraining our brain and cells through changing our environment and thoughts to create a better existence for ourselves. It is so far removed from the ‘pathology & diagnosis paradigm’ and just like the cosmic joke when they thought the atom was the smallest thing and they had done all that was needed (until they split it), I think pharmaceuticals are and will go the same wat, it is a great cosmic joke to think they are the ultimate and final stage of cure/control.
Why would we need a DSM if there was no mental illness to diagnose in the first place?
I continued with: … people sometimes have a need to say oh, it’s not my fault, I’m a/ or I have______ (blank being alcoholic, bipolar disorder, sex addict, PTSD, etc).
I can see how using a label can alleviate some symptoms, but on the other hand, it seems like people then just get stuck with that label and don’t do much to “cure” themselves.
I’m not saying mental illness doesn’t exist. I am saying there is much too much emphasis on pathologizing rather than coping. Needless to say, I don’t put much stock in the DSM or 12 step, as those “treatments” seem to only deal with symptoms, not underlying inability to cope with, well, being a living human being.
Easier to say, “Hi, this is my daughter with aspergers or adhd”, rather than feeling like you have any part to play in this child’s ability to cope and thrive.
Amberley Meredith responded:
Diagnosis is an anchor, itâs not a sail that can take you wherever you want to go, like the Harbour of good health. The anchor weighs you down and makes you stuck, immobile. Reality is constantly moving, if you are not moving and are stuck then you stay where you became stuck, i.e. if you were well, then got sick, then anchor in the diagnosis of being sick you will stay moored in sickness, as opposed to being like reality and moving into wellness.
Itâs not to say your reality is not true, it is not to say the pain and feelings donât exist of course they do. But you can choose to say âI am worthless and would be better off dead, I have depressionâ or you could choose to say âright now my feelings are showing me that my life is not what I want, therefore I am going to work out what I do want and then work out how to achieve itâ. Reality is not a static diagnosis; it is a living breathing thing that can change in any given moment.
There is no such thing as mental illness, there are just a periods in your life when you are not feeling great, when you are adopting some poor coping mechanisms and your feelings are signals telling you this and that you need to make some positive changes.
The DSM probably started out with all the best intentions, just like the chemists who created most drugs, however, big business got in the way and now global corporations have far too much influence and control. I believe drugs have a place… largely in making drug companies more money and the DSM is their new sidekick.
I find it immensely funny and noteworthy that I lost my own copy of the DSM about 7 years ago and have not since replaced it. I think this tells me quite a lot. Our world loves to define, classify and systematize things in order to understand them. But the essential problem with this approach is that it makes the thing static and unable to evolve organically. Which humans do, they evolve, they change. How can we use rigid systems to describe life, that is constant flux and a state of transformation? It is wholly inappropriate and irrelevant.
An emerging model that permits and allows change is Existence Medicine, where people are seen as individual, human beings, treated with intimacy, breath and touch, acknowledging all levels of existence (physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual) and how the levels interact and affect one another. The premise is one of stimulating self-actualization, growth through understanding and change through compassion.
Categorization means you are putting limits around it, defining it, therefore it should be surprising that a classification of mental health like the DSM has its limits. I always cite the fact homosexuality was still in the DSM into the 1980’s as a mental illness, this book is not the final destination, it may be useful sometimes to understand what a cluster of symptoms might mean and how this cluster of symptoms might be helped. But also sometimes its just plain wrong.
That said I think the DSM is only part of a bigger problem. the bigger problem is the humans who are mis-using it.
I wanted to share a bit about what other therapists were saying about this topic to really get people thinking about the ramifications of being part of this system before insisting that their therapy involve a mental illness diagnosis and insurance reimbursement. Â Thanks to Hilding and Amberley for letting me include their thoughts here.
Before using in-network or out of network insurance benefits for counseling/psychotherapy, find a therapist who works on a sliding scale. Â Don’t be afraid to do some short-term, effective, work. Â Don’t be afraid to ask your therapist how long they expect to have you in therapy. Â We’re all in this together!
Dr. DeMarco supervises graduate student therapists as well as post-graduates working towards licensure in New York as Mental Health Counselors or Marriage and Family Therapists.
We offer support in your journey towards emotional freedom and happiness - something that comes from you, not from us. We’re not selling diagnoses and pills. We’re not selling answers to all of your problems. We are here to teach you the tools to create your own psychological, emotional and philosophical way in the world- your life, for you, by you. One size does not fit all. Life can be painful, but only you can decide if you want to make yourself suffer.
In our work with clients, we are interested less in a label or pill to give you so we can bill your insurance,rather we hope to help identify how people, as Albert Ellis called it, self-disturb. That is, we’re not big fans of putting more labels out there in the universe, but help people learn to, well, “undisturb” themselves.
Sound like a long process you can’t afford? This isn’t 12-Step. Leave your DSM and expectations at home.
Interested in sessions with us? We’ll teach you how to measure your progress in therapy as well as how to be your own therapist. If it’s not effective for you, we’ll happily refer you elsewhere.
There are individuals, groups, corporations- whole systems of people designed to try to make you feel anxious, scared, depressed, helpless, and hopeless. Whether they are successful or not is up to you.
Want to know more? Schedule now!
Let’s summarize. Something happens. You tell yourself all sorts of BS about that happening, and you feel and react accordingly. That’s how life works. If you’re all upset, then it’s you upsetting yourself. Generally we upset ourselves because we are only accepting ourselves, others and life based on OUR rules, and not on reality.
To continue the exercise, and reap some therapeutic reward, we have to learn D and E. D stands for dispute and debate (and DeMarco) and is my job as the therapist, but something you can learn to do on your own. Albert Ellis, who originated this style of therapy called it a self-help exercise because you can learn this tool and implement it in your own life.
At B, you’re telling yourself all sorts of beliefs (aka bullshit) that drives you crazy at C. What we want to do is debate those bullshit beliefs. What proof do you have? Where do the beliefs come from? Holding on to this BS does what for you exactly besides making you upset as a consequence? So if we can keep those three unconditional acceptance in mind, then we can start to see that B really is just what’s going on in our head, and that there is probably a more rational, less effed up way of looking at the situation.
So from our driving example, at B we figured out: People should drive the way I want them to. I’m a perfect driver. If I am perfect, everyone should be perfect. That guy that cut me off is not perfect, therefore he is a rude S.O.B. who should be flipped off. He cut me off, so he must be an idiot who doesn’t know how to drive. I can’t stand idiots. Yeah, he had his wife and 3 kids in the car, but he still is an ass who should learn how to drive. If we would have wrecked, that would have been the most terrible thing I’ve ever experienced!
So fine. Think those thoughts. But then you have to ask the infamous “How’s that workin’ for ya?!” question. How’s it workin’? I’m pissed off, have road rage, and am throwing a hissy fit in my car.
So at D, let’s keep in mind the unconditionals and start debating that BS. People don’t exist to drive the way you want them to. There is no perfect, so people don’t have to be something that doesn’t even exist. If someone cuts you off, it may suck, but it’s not the end of the world, and that has nothing to do with whether the guy is a lousy SOB or not. Even if he did it on purpose, who cares?! I didn’t wreck. This is inconvenient, but hardly the most terrible thing I’ve ever encountered, and not something that I have to hold on to to drive myself crazy. People can drive like idiots sometimes. It happens. It has relatively little to do with me, or with anything in the big universal scheme of things.
Voila. This is my job as I see it. People come in telling themselves all sorts of things to make them anxious, depressed, angry, etc, and I’m pointing out the flaws in their thinking that lead them to these unhealthy negative emotions, while all the time normalizing that we are all human and sometimes do/feel unhealthy things. And what?! But point is, if you don’t want to be angry, depressed, anxious, etc anymore, then YOU have to get rid of perpetuating those bullshit beliefs at B, and rewrite the directions so you end up someplace else at E. If you’re really actively believing your new more balanced arguments at D, then it won’t make sense to end up with road rage. At E you will end up somewhere else like annoyance, frustration, disappointment, sadness, regret, etc. These are still negative emotions, but healthy negative emotions. People don’t kill other people because they’re annoyed. People kill other people because they’re pissed off furiously enraged. So once we can get you to a healthy negative emotion, then we can work on increasing your tolerance for a little bit of healthy negativity without it careening out of control into something unhealthy.
So let’s map it out completely
A= Adversity/Activating Event
B= Beliefs (Thoughts) About that Event- also known as bullshit
C= Consequences (Of thinking those thoughts)- also known as crazy (angry, depressed, anxious, guilty, self-loathing - unhealthy)
D= Dispute, Debate (those thoughts at B) - also known as DeMarco
E= Effect (of disputing and debating the BS) - where you end up as a result (annoyed, frustrated, sad, regretful, remorseful, disappointed- healthy)
