Therapist Profile

My Approach to Helping

In my private practice, I combine the creative arts therapies (art, movement and sounding) with Trauma Resolution work. As a board certified and registered art therapist for ten years I am experienced in supporting someone's imaginal process as a means to empower him or her to transform issues, pain and life's challenges. As a transpersonal counselor I believe that we are all on a journey towards wholeness and the bumps in the road are opportunities for greater depth and potential. It is crucial that we work with the totality of experience our bodies, minds, hearts and souls as we reclaim our true authenticity. As a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, I have completed a three year training with Peter Levine, Ph.D., author of Waking the Tiger. I am trained to work with our body nervous system in a unique way. Through awareness practices and support, one can retrieve sensations, images, feelings, thoughts and movements that have been trapped in previous traumatic experiences. Once released, this allows a person to clear out the trauma from one body and create new meaning of the events experienced. I am developing a 12 day trauma training called "Breaking Through to Joy" and am presently offering the first of 4 three-day modules. I have a developmental approach to healing and believe in a person-centered therapeutic style. This means that I do not lead the process but work together with my clients to achieve their goals. I also educate my clients as to the missing pieces developmentally that will help them retrieve necessary archetypal energies they need to feel a sense of sovereignty over their own experience. I work with individuals, couples and long-term groups. In addition, I teach workshops, a year-long training in embodiment practices and somatic art therapy called the Spiral of Healing. I am on the faculty of a graduate art therapy education program in Sonoma County. I am also available for short term groups, in-services and workshops as requested.

More Info About My Practice

As the 13th century Sufi poet Hafiz said: The small man builds cages for everyone he knows. While the sage who has to bend her head when the moon is low, Keeps dropping keys all night long For the beautiful, rowdy prisoners. It is through the gaining of wisdom and the experience of grace that we can flow beyond our imposed restrictions and experience a boundless relationship with self and others. The reason this may not be happening is that we are often constricted by old beliefs and feelings that keep our minds limited and small. Retrieving wisdom requires a journey, a spiral journey that begins with an awareness of who we are right now, including the blessings we have and the challenges that teach us. By expanding our skills and knowledge we can venture into the unknown, emptying ourselves of limiting ideas and retrieving jewels that are buried deep within the mystery of life. By doing this we join with the creative life force to transform our lives and those around us with a deeper sense of connection, compassion and joy. I invite you to explore the pages of my website. As you do, sense into yourself, your body, your feelings and the definitions you hold about yourself. Allow some new experience to arise that might surprise you and move you, no matter where you are on your journey. Let that newness be your guide as you travel the Spiral of Healing. Blessings, Meagan Pugh