"My patients call to rave about the influence Glenda Cedarleaf's CDs have on them.
They find the vision and strength....to eat right, take medications and supplements as needed, rest refreshingly, exercise cautiously, minimize attention to pain and soothe allergies.
Then the true healing begins." Dr. Karen Vrchota
They find the vision and strength....to eat right, take medications and supplements as needed, rest refreshingly, exercise cautiously, minimize attention to pain and soothe allergies.
Then the true healing begins." Dr. Karen Vrchota
Healing Sessions in my office, on the phone and via Skype
I believe that we can transform our biggest challenges into powerful insights that can heal our deepest wounds.
My approach is to utilize insight oriented
therapies to heal mind body and spirit.
Imagine going to sleep and waking up listening to imagery uniquely created to relax, inspire and empower you.
It is for this reason that I create Guided Imagery CDs that are custom made for each client.
These audio experiences incorporate uniquely designed words and images that offer comfort, insight, and opportunities for accessing and releasing emotions, as well as important insights into healing.
The co creating of this CD is a cornerstone for the counseling process.
I support clients to:
* Address depression, anxiety, phobias, and low self esteem
*Navigate life transitions: illness, divorce, career changes, loss-grief
*Release emotions/body memories related to chronic illness and trauma
*Explore and unblock creativity-nurturing the artist within
* Improve academic and sports pursuits
* Prepare for medical procedures
*Create and reinforce healthy eating and exercise behaviors
* Improve Relaxation and Stress Management
* Explore challenges and opportunities of mid-life menopause/empty nest
*Create, reinforce and visualize pathways for life change
I am a 1980 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
School of Social Work.
For over 25 years, I have worked with individuals and couples facing emotional, physical & spiritual challenges, providing counseling in a variety of settings including:
2 integrative holistic centers,
an oncology clinic,
hospice and home health care,
and a wellness spa.
Facilitating retreats and workshops that incorporate guided imagery, journaling,art and movement is one of my passions.
My advanced training in guided imagery, somatic healing and hypnotherapy is through: The Institute for Health Psychology, National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine, Wellness Institute's Heart Centered Hypnotherapy, and the Academy of Guided Imagery.
My approach also incorporates the use of mindfulness practices in creating greater clarity and the ability to experience the gift of truly living in the present.
Some of my teachers have included:
Belleruth Naparstek, LICSW, Emmett Miller, MD, James Spira, PhD, Steve Gilligan, PhD, and Peter Levine, MD.
I have also trained as a life coach with Kathleen Brehony PhD through the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine.
I am a clinical member of:
The Wellness Institute's Heart Centered Hypnotherapy
National Association of Social Workers
Imagery International
Holistic Physicians of the Midwest
To learn more about my guided imagery audios for healing visit visitwww.guidedimagerycd.com
My approach is to utilize insight oriented
therapies to heal mind body and spirit.
Imagine going to sleep and waking up listening to imagery uniquely created to relax, inspire and empower you.
It is for this reason that I create Guided Imagery CDs that are custom made for each client.
These audio experiences incorporate uniquely designed words and images that offer comfort, insight, and opportunities for accessing and releasing emotions, as well as important insights into healing.
The co creating of this CD is a cornerstone for the counseling process.
I support clients to:
* Address depression, anxiety, phobias, and low self esteem
*Navigate life transitions: illness, divorce, career changes, loss-grief
*Release emotions/body memories related to chronic illness and trauma
*Explore and unblock creativity-nurturing the artist within
* Improve academic and sports pursuits
* Prepare for medical procedures
*Create and reinforce healthy eating and exercise behaviors
* Improve Relaxation and Stress Management
* Explore challenges and opportunities of mid-life menopause/empty nest
*Create, reinforce and visualize pathways for life change
I am a 1980 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
School of Social Work.
For over 25 years, I have worked with individuals and couples facing emotional, physical & spiritual challenges, providing counseling in a variety of settings including:
2 integrative holistic centers,
an oncology clinic,
hospice and home health care,
and a wellness spa.
Facilitating retreats and workshops that incorporate guided imagery, journaling,art and movement is one of my passions.
My advanced training in guided imagery, somatic healing and hypnotherapy is through: The Institute for Health Psychology, National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine, Wellness Institute's Heart Centered Hypnotherapy, and the Academy of Guided Imagery.
My approach also incorporates the use of mindfulness practices in creating greater clarity and the ability to experience the gift of truly living in the present.
Some of my teachers have included:
Belleruth Naparstek, LICSW, Emmett Miller, MD, James Spira, PhD, Steve Gilligan, PhD, and Peter Levine, MD.
I have also trained as a life coach with Kathleen Brehony PhD through the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine.
I am a clinical member of:
The Wellness Institute's Heart Centered Hypnotherapy
National Association of Social Workers
Imagery International
Holistic Physicians of the Midwest
To learn more about my guided imagery audios for healing visit visitwww.guidedimagerycd.com
Integration of the Self: Post Traumatic Stress & Hypnotherapy
A Case Study
By Glenda Cedarleaf MSW, LICSW
“How can I begin to change these patterns that continue—so familiar so constant?—I’m tired of going down this same path again and again…”
Does this sound familiar? It is often the first concern that clients bring into my office. How can I help the part of me that sabotages me to listen to the part of me that knows better, that wants to heal?
This challenge requires a process of integration that I believe is the key to transformation. Clients follow a process of integrating the hurting/disempowered self, the mature, wise adult self, with the clarity and power of their spiritual resources.
This process requires compassion, commitment and collaboration on the part of the client, the therapist as well as other significant people in the client’s life in order for a mind/body/spirit connection to begin to deepen and transform. The healing process also deepens with the synergy of complementary treatment modalities - for example, combining psychotherapy/hypnotherapy with body or energy work. With this integrative strategy, the process of becoming unblocked emotionally and physically can occur more effectively and usually, at a quicker pace.
Integrating what is learned in therapy into one’s life is also an important part of the healing process. When one creates a daily practice that is life giving, a foundation is built that helps us choose to be ”in this life in this moment”. This daily practice is unique to each of us and examples of such practices may include: journal writing, exercising, reading inspirational material, musical expression, meditation and prayer, to name just a few. It is helpful to combine practices that feed mind, body and spirit.
In my work as a therapist, a primary focus is to enable a “corrective experience”. This experiential process is described by Hartman and Zimberoff in “Corrective Emotional Experience” (Journal of Heart-Centered Therapies; Volume 7, 2004). I am trained in this approach by the Wellness Institute. This "Heart Centered
Hypnotherapy Training" is offered world wide to treat trauma and offers an integrative approach to healing.
This "Corrective Emotional Experience" includes:
“Expressing blocked emotions
Mourning the losses
Incorporating the lessons
Reforming and re-patterning experiences
Releasing helplessness
Reclaiming worthiness and personal power
Practicing being in the “here and now”
Reframing early erroneous conclusions/decisions and
Reclaiming lost parts of the self.”
How does this work? I’ve chosen to tell you about one person’s Healing from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to give you an example of how hypnotherapy, energy work and the process of integration brought about transformation for her.
CASE EXAMPLE: SERENA (fictitious name)
presented with permission from the client.
Serena experienced ongoing severe childhood abuse: sexual, physical and verbal. She developed digestive problems as a child as well as significant anxiety. By 16 she attempted suicide. Amidst these difficulties, throughout her childhood and into her adult years, she felt very spiritually connected and had several “visions”. In addition, she had pursued various forms of energy Healing and understood the concept of somatic intelligence - our unconscious speaks to us in its own language through body awareness.
She met once with a mental Health professional who actually told her that her childhood abuse was her fault. Of course this had a strong impact on her perception of mental health providers as well as created more confusion for her about her perception of the emotional pain she experienced.
Her symptoms did not improve. Years later, with a recommendation from her body/energy therapist, she chose to try therapy again. I was her chosen therapist.
On her first visit she described having life long adult PTSD symptoms: upsetting dreams, panic attacks, fear of being alone, fear of closing her eyes, thinking “something’s going to get me”, multiple flashbacks, difficulty with sexual intimacy, hyper reactivity, chronic tension, shoulder and back pain. She described her sleep as “light” and frequently awaking with “upsetting dreams”. Serena also had vague memories of her abuse.
During the first session, she could not lie down on the couch or close her eyes. She expressed a fear that she might be punished if she made a mistake. As she began to trust me as her therapist, she opened to some gentle guided Imagery exercises and then to co-creating a custom self hypnosis CD which she began listening to on a daily basis. We discussed PTSD, its symptoms, and causes. She began to feel less judgmental of herself and more understanding of her symptoms.
On the sixth session we began hypnotherapy. After using the Imagery we created on her CD to help her relax, I guided her to recall one of the most recent times she felt her anxiety arise. As she connected with specific body memories, she began to feel herself disassociate. As Serena experienced the process of disassociation, we reinforced a sense of safety and support. Then she could feel herself “leave her body” only momentarily and then return, eventually, without panic. I helped her understand cognitively and physically how to “ground” herself.
She was gradually able to relax for longer periods of time and stay in her body to process the emotional and physical sensations. More specific memories became clear. She would experience an increase in bodily discomfort which dissipated as the emotional integration unfolded. She tapped into her feelings of rage and helplessness. She Imagined/visualized herself as a child and gradually rewrote the script - now with the support of an Imagined wise woman guide who knew how to help her assertively face her abusers and release blocked anger. She grew to see how the core abuse she suffered created multiple layers of protectiveness and fear.
As she continued to feel safe, Serena was able to release fear and focus on her strengths. Through her own process of integrating the abused child, the wise woman and her spiritual resources, she was ultimately able to visualize and experience herself as an empowered woman.
Serena’s childhood memories are now integrated. Her adult self and her child self work together to create a compassionate collaborative and empowered way of processing information. The traumatic memories that were lodged in her body/mind have lost their intense charge.
After 5 months and 14 sessions, Serena has a new found sense of peace. She can close her eyes without fear and meditates daily. She states“I protect myself with assertiveness, but I no longer feel I have to control others.” She feels sexually confident and no longer feels guilty or “bad” for enjoying this aspect of her life. “I’ve been given the ‘go’ signal to be me. I just go to sleep all night and no longer have weird dark thoughts.” She has lightness in her spirit and a childlike sense of humor. Her clients notice a difference in her personality. She clearly channels positive energy in her work. She has experienced the process of integration.
A Case Study
By Glenda Cedarleaf MSW, LICSW
“How can I begin to change these patterns that continue—so familiar so constant?—I’m tired of going down this same path again and again…”
Does this sound familiar? It is often the first concern that clients bring into my office. How can I help the part of me that sabotages me to listen to the part of me that knows better, that wants to heal?
This challenge requires a process of integration that I believe is the key to transformation. Clients follow a process of integrating the hurting/disempowered self, the mature, wise adult self, with the clarity and power of their spiritual resources.
This process requires compassion, commitment and collaboration on the part of the client, the therapist as well as other significant people in the client’s life in order for a mind/body/spirit connection to begin to deepen and transform. The healing process also deepens with the synergy of complementary treatment modalities - for example, combining psychotherapy/hypnotherapy with body or energy work. With this integrative strategy, the process of becoming unblocked emotionally and physically can occur more effectively and usually, at a quicker pace.
Integrating what is learned in therapy into one’s life is also an important part of the healing process. When one creates a daily practice that is life giving, a foundation is built that helps us choose to be ”in this life in this moment”. This daily practice is unique to each of us and examples of such practices may include: journal writing, exercising, reading inspirational material, musical expression, meditation and prayer, to name just a few. It is helpful to combine practices that feed mind, body and spirit.
In my work as a therapist, a primary focus is to enable a “corrective experience”. This experiential process is described by Hartman and Zimberoff in “Corrective Emotional Experience” (Journal of Heart-Centered Therapies; Volume 7, 2004). I am trained in this approach by the Wellness Institute. This "Heart Centered
Hypnotherapy Training" is offered world wide to treat trauma and offers an integrative approach to healing.
This "Corrective Emotional Experience" includes:
“Expressing blocked emotions
Mourning the losses
Incorporating the lessons
Reforming and re-patterning experiences
Releasing helplessness
Reclaiming worthiness and personal power
Practicing being in the “here and now”
Reframing early erroneous conclusions/decisions and
Reclaiming lost parts of the self.”
How does this work? I’ve chosen to tell you about one person’s Healing from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to give you an example of how hypnotherapy, energy work and the process of integration brought about transformation for her.
CASE EXAMPLE: SERENA (fictitious name)
presented with permission from the client.
Serena experienced ongoing severe childhood abuse: sexual, physical and verbal. She developed digestive problems as a child as well as significant anxiety. By 16 she attempted suicide. Amidst these difficulties, throughout her childhood and into her adult years, she felt very spiritually connected and had several “visions”. In addition, she had pursued various forms of energy Healing and understood the concept of somatic intelligence - our unconscious speaks to us in its own language through body awareness.
She met once with a mental Health professional who actually told her that her childhood abuse was her fault. Of course this had a strong impact on her perception of mental health providers as well as created more confusion for her about her perception of the emotional pain she experienced.
Her symptoms did not improve. Years later, with a recommendation from her body/energy therapist, she chose to try therapy again. I was her chosen therapist.
On her first visit she described having life long adult PTSD symptoms: upsetting dreams, panic attacks, fear of being alone, fear of closing her eyes, thinking “something’s going to get me”, multiple flashbacks, difficulty with sexual intimacy, hyper reactivity, chronic tension, shoulder and back pain. She described her sleep as “light” and frequently awaking with “upsetting dreams”. Serena also had vague memories of her abuse.
During the first session, she could not lie down on the couch or close her eyes. She expressed a fear that she might be punished if she made a mistake. As she began to trust me as her therapist, she opened to some gentle guided Imagery exercises and then to co-creating a custom self hypnosis CD which she began listening to on a daily basis. We discussed PTSD, its symptoms, and causes. She began to feel less judgmental of herself and more understanding of her symptoms.
On the sixth session we began hypnotherapy. After using the Imagery we created on her CD to help her relax, I guided her to recall one of the most recent times she felt her anxiety arise. As she connected with specific body memories, she began to feel herself disassociate. As Serena experienced the process of disassociation, we reinforced a sense of safety and support. Then she could feel herself “leave her body” only momentarily and then return, eventually, without panic. I helped her understand cognitively and physically how to “ground” herself.
She was gradually able to relax for longer periods of time and stay in her body to process the emotional and physical sensations. More specific memories became clear. She would experience an increase in bodily discomfort which dissipated as the emotional integration unfolded. She tapped into her feelings of rage and helplessness. She Imagined/visualized herself as a child and gradually rewrote the script - now with the support of an Imagined wise woman guide who knew how to help her assertively face her abusers and release blocked anger. She grew to see how the core abuse she suffered created multiple layers of protectiveness and fear.
As she continued to feel safe, Serena was able to release fear and focus on her strengths. Through her own process of integrating the abused child, the wise woman and her spiritual resources, she was ultimately able to visualize and experience herself as an empowered woman.
Serena’s childhood memories are now integrated. Her adult self and her child self work together to create a compassionate collaborative and empowered way of processing information. The traumatic memories that were lodged in her body/mind have lost their intense charge.
After 5 months and 14 sessions, Serena has a new found sense of peace. She can close her eyes without fear and meditates daily. She states“I protect myself with assertiveness, but I no longer feel I have to control others.” She feels sexually confident and no longer feels guilty or “bad” for enjoying this aspect of her life. “I’ve been given the ‘go’ signal to be me. I just go to sleep all night and no longer have weird dark thoughts.” She has lightness in her spirit and a childlike sense of humor. Her clients notice a difference in her personality. She clearly channels positive energy in her work. She has experienced the process of integration.
