Services


Psychotherapy

One of the first questions many patients ask is, “What is your orientation?” or “What kind of therapy do you do?” My approach is very cognitive - it is my core belief that much of our distress is based in the ways that we think - but it is also behavioral - because we also grow by changing our behaviors. The nature/nurture debate will go on and on, but it is safe to say that we ourselves do at least in part contribute, through our thought, emotional, and behavior patterns, to how we feel, how our relationships go, and how we succeed and fail in life.


I work with patients to understand how their experiences affect them - i.e. how the “nurture” part of the equation contributed to the formation of these very thought patterns, but also to emotional habits and behaviors in our relationships that are not helpful.


I work with individuals from diverse backgrounds. Individuals may be facing:


You will find that my approach is patient and gentle, but structured and consistent. Changing one’s thought patterns - and one’s life – it’s not difficult, in principle. What I am here to do is to teach you and to support you in clearing away what you are thinking and doing wrong, in order to open up space. When you do, you find within yourself, the thoughts and behaviors that will add to your happiness, tranquility, relationships, and success - rather than detract from them. 

You know that you need to change, simply, when whatever you have been thinking and doing, does not bring you what you want. 


Psychological Testing

Psychological assessment is done for a variety of reasons, but the central goal is to obtain more information about your overall psychological functioning.  Individuals request assessment to learn about themselves. Often attorneys refer clients for assessment – for example, for immigration reasons or because the individual is involved in a civil lawsuit. I also perform evaluations for the foster care system, candidates for police and fire departments and other similar agencies, for individuals who are contemplating becoming a member of the clergy, and for those involved in workman’s compensation issues.


In a psychological assessment/evaluation, apart from the specific contexts that I named above, some of the areas that I cover are:


Hypnosis

Another very good and very interesting way of approaching our thought process is through hypnosis. Of course, in the media, and through the years, hypnosis has been dramatized and misrepresented in many ways, but the truth about it is that it is a slow and gentle way to move away from external stimuli and focus on own's thought process. In a sense, it is like meditation. Hypnosis also has a way of “getting in under the radar” – under one’s defenses and conditioned ways of thinking. In this way, it is a bit like sleep, in the sense that one’s “day mind” gets moved out of the way so that one can search for and identify outworn and dysfunctional habits and substitute them with better ones. Also, I can teach you scripts which you can use on your own at home. 


Dream work


Meditation


The creative process


Bibliotherapy - books, poetry, sacred and wisdom literature


Group therapy (when available)


Psychoanalytically-oriented therapy

If you'd like to get a feel for my ways of working, and my voice​, feel free to go to:

madeofclay.org/maria-holden/ 

(This is an interview done with Eric Clay from the Made of Clay Report. Eric may be contacted at info@madeofclay.org. Additional interviews and discussions at madeofclay.org)