Martha is a seasoned licensed clinical social worker with over 30 years of private practice experience. Throughout her career, she has specialized in helping individuals dealing with anxiety, depression, PTSD, eating disorders, stress, and overwhelming challenges in everyday life. Martha has worked with a wide range of clients, including groups, businesses, athletes, artists, and families, and she is particularly drawn to those open to exploring different approaches to personal transformation. With a diverse background in psychology, body-centered psychotherapy, hypnosis, cognitive-behavioral psychology, energy-based therapy, Human Design, and neurofeedback, Martha integrates her extensive knowledge to provide personalized and holistic sessions for each client. Join us on a journey exploring Martha‘s talents with this MysticMag interview.
Can you explain how the combination of Optimal Living, Energy Psychotherapy, Neurofeedback, and Human Design can positively impact an individual’s overall well-being?
I meet people where they are and decide with them what would be the most helpful path forward. I get almost everyone’s Human Design because it helps me to understand what their wiring is so that we’re not trying to fix something that isn’t broken. So often, what people are experiencing as “problems” are actually gifts they used for their survival strategies growing up, and have either been overused or misapplied. The work is to untangle the gift from the trauma so that they get to reclaim the gift for what it was meant to be. Using energy psych techniques in the sessions — once we’ve figured out what the issues are — helps to clear things relatively quickly. I use neurofeedback (NeurOptimal) if I think they need to reregulate themselves at a foundational level — so with out-of-control anxiety or depression, ADD or ADHD, or PTSD. It depends.
What are some specific techniques or practices used in Energy Psychotherapy that can help individuals overcome emotional blocks and traumas?
I use EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), Emotional Repatterning Technique, and many others — alone or in combination — to help people actually shift the patterns that they’ve found so frustrating or painful. “Talk therapy” by itself doesn’t move things very much. These techniques help to unstick the energy that keeps those patterns activated. People almost always feel better after every session.
I also use other energy techniques, like the Bengston Energy method or the Safe and Sound Protocol — depending on what’s going on with the client. I like to have a variety of tools in my toolbox because not everything works for everyone.
How does Neurofeedback work, and what are some of the benefits it can provide in terms of optimizing brain function and promoting mental and emotional well-being?
The NeurOptimal system I use is different from other neurofeedback systems out there in that it’s nonlinear, dynamical, and isn’t doing anything “to you.” It just lets your brain know what it’s just done so that it can use that information to optimize itself. It’s brain “training,” not therapy. But what happens is that your brain uses the information about itself to re-regulate itself, and so loops get unhooked, thought ruts get shallower, and you can move from “reactive” to “responsive.” Your brain works better. Things quiet down inside your head. I tell my clients, “It’s not that you become a different person. You are still you, it’s just easier being you.” That’s huge. And it makes everything else go better.
Can you explain the concept of Human Design and how it can be utilized to enhance self-awareness and personal growth?
Human Design is an integration of astrology, the chakra system, the Kabbalah, the I-Ching, quantum physics, and genetics. It’s complex and comprehensive. It gives you the blueprint of how you are meant to be in the world, apart from all the conditioning you’ve gotten along the way. I tell my clients, “I’m not going to tell you anything you don’t already know about yourself. But this can give you some words for what you’ve always experienced, articulating your weird and unique experience, so that you can trust yourself more and understand what your gifts and strengths are, and explain why the world has been so challenging to you!” More than anything, people experience it as a relief. They’re not crazy, which is always good to know. It also helps them to validate and affirm what their gifts are, what their purpose is, how they’ve been vulnerable to conditioning, and what to do about that.
How do these modalities complement each other in a holistic approach to achieving optimal living? Can you provide examples of how they can be integrated into a comprehensive treatment plan?
I meet the person, and we talk about what’s going on. As we talk, I’m looking for patterns, for areas of stuckness, where the energy is charged or blocked. I get their design and explain why. We talk about what the best way forward might be to get them to where they want to be. They let me know what their main areas of trauma or concern are. I listen deeply and give them ideas of what we might do. I’m always curious, I don’t guarantee anything! I hold a “let’s see what happens” kind of attitude. The energy psych techniques are the magic. They do clear things at a level that just talking will never do. But with their Human Design as a background, we can explain things in a way that without it, we’re just flying blind and hoping for the best. And I teach them the techniques that they can use themselves to help them deal with things as they come up, not just when they see me. “I” am not the magic.
Neurofeedback I use as an adjunct to whatever else is going on. It happens outside my direct intervention; it’s between them and their brain. But if their brain is totally scattered, then it’s harder to do anything else. Sometimes it’s more helpful for that to come first.
Can you share any notable success stories or case studies that demonstrate the positive outcomes of utilizing Optimal Living, Energy Psychotherapy, Neurofeedback, and Human Design in practice?
This is hard because I feel like pretty much everyone is a success story. That sounds unreasonable. I guess I say that because if it wasn’t working, I wouldn’t be doing it the way that I have been.
Having said that, I have to say that the biggest impact has been the combination of energy psych and Human Design. Once people get what they’re here to do, what they’re designed to do, why they can trust themselves, and how they’ve been conditioned away from trusting who they are — so many things fall into place. Issues dissolve rapidly, using the energy psych techniques. Shifts tend to happen really fast. At the same time, sometimes the traumas have been deep and cumulative, and so it takes a while (months, maybe, not years) to clear.
One client that came for just a session was feeling bad because she wasn’t doing what her parents wanted her to in terms of getting a job and was feeling her self-esteem dropping into the toilet. Endless feelings of “I’m a failure.” She felt like she was doing a death march to the computer to get on the job websites. When we did her HD, she realized that all her jobs came from people that she knew, so doing the website thing was never going to work for her, and that is why she felt so awful trying to get it to work for her. We talked about her just talking to everyone she knew, and things would work out. They did, and she felt so much better!
