Richard Walla,M.A., LPC, NCC

Psychotherapy is my passion and I love helping people improve their lives. I have found that I have the personality and innate skills necessary to help individuals with mental health disorders. My area of interest is Anxiety (avoiding future painful emotions) and Mood Disorders (avoiding past painful emotions), and how they relate to Personality Disorder Symptoms. My approach is primarily based on the fundamental works of Dr. Sigmund Freud (Psychoanalysis), Dr. Carl Jung (Analytical Psychology), Dr. “Fritz: Perls (Gestalt Therapy), Albert Ellis, PhD., (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy), and many others. Of these, Albert Ellis and Fritz Perls both suggested that in their years of experience, clients seek psychotherapy because of their “identity problems”, based on the question: Who are you, really? Not your “image”, that you developed in order to “fit in” to your environment (or survive it), but who are you meant to be in your most naturally innate state? The works of the founders of psychoanalysis instilled in me the necessity of analyzing the memories and beliefs that have created the logical, emotional, and behavioral problems of the individual seeking treatment.

My approach is based analyzing your "thought behaviors", which is based on "Cognitive Behavior Theory". Cognitive Behavior Therapy is based on the theory that your thoughts and perceptions about who you are, or who you believe you "should be", are based on unresolved trauma of some sort; and you are not currently aware that those traumas created flawed belief patterns about yourself. Those unconscious belief patterns are causing your emotional conflicts in all your relationships; including your relationship with your “Identity”, your True Self. The hypothesis is that your anxieties and fears appear most often when you interact with other people: spouses, partners, family, friends, parents, relatives, career and employment relationships, etc.

I encourage my clients to accept that their dysfunctional thinking habit is a "Disorder", and that it is not an "Illness", per se. In psychotherapy, thinking and feeling problems are better described as "dis-orderly", because they are unconscious, so some of their automatic behaviors don't make sense. My approach is to help the client make sense of their mistaken and irrational behavioral patterns, so that they will eventually begin to get better on their own. Recovery time from past traumas depends on how strongly repressed or denied the problems are at the moment. That factor will determine the length of time for the treatment outcome.

The first stage of my psychotherapy process is “analysis”; the second, is the “therapeutic” stage (where you are encouraged to learn Mindfulness, Emotional Regulation, Distress Tolerance, or Interpersonal Relationships). The third stage, is “practicing” the skills to change the learned habits. The final stage, is “mastery” of the skills sufficiently to not need further therapy. I work with all types, and I do have special interest in helping Introverted Personality Type individuals, who may have always experienced feelings of shyness, hypersensitivity to overstimulating environments, and who prefer quiet solitude over crowded socializing, and educating them that there are very good reasons they act and feel as they do.