The Fork in the Road is Stuck in My Brain

with Irene Siegel, MS, LCSW

Discover an integrative approach to overcoming life’s obstacles and getting back on the path to growth, healing and happiness.

Our large family was seated around a lavish holiday table. My girlfriend, who later became my wife, was on my right. It was her first time meeting my family, and all was going well…until she asked me to get her a fork. A hush fell over the room. In my macho European family the men never went to the kitchen—ever. And her seemingly innocuous request was a face-slapping insult, highlighted by the fact that it was in front of my parents. I didn't speak with my girlfriend for a month and almost broke off the relationship.

Stories like this remind us that we all perceive things differently. Whether it’s how we’ve been raised or out of habit, what we feel is right or what we feel is necessary, we make decisions throughout the course of our lives based on our experiences and the paradigms through which we view every situation. So imagine then what would happen if you were asked to take a step back, re-evaluate the bigger picture, and transform the way you perceive your life. The results would be dramatic and empowering.

According to Irene Siegel, co-director of Center Point, a health and counseling center based in Huntington, NY, and a licensed clinical social worker, this willingness to change is the first step to discovering what you are capable of achieving. “The goal of healing is to create an alignment of your emotions, beliefs and actions. Understanding how the three are connected paves the way for a deeper understanding of who you are and what you can become,” says Siegel. “When people realize that they can change, they begin to do just that.” Utilizing a transpersonal, holistic approach to counseling, Siegel works to help patients reach their optimal levels of well-being by approaching specific, immediate health and emotional problems through a broader examination of their lifestyles and belief systems. “We go beyond just symptom reduction,” she says, “and gradually begin to pull apart the real underlying issues that inhibit people from being able to heal and grow.”

Through a series of seminars, and in conjunction with her clinical practice, Siegel guides people through the steps needed to change their perceptions, examine their core beliefs and origins, redefine their goals, and create new visions for themselves. “An integrative, spiritual approach to psychotherapy,” she says, “allows us to approach problems on a larger scale, through a variety of avenues.” Although a person may attend a group seminar or an individual treatment at Center Point because of stress or chronic pain, he or she comes to realize that those are only the superficial flags to deeper issues. When you begin to strengthen the foundation, re-occurring symptoms quickly fade away.

Along with sound clinical assessment and intervention, adjunct tools such as guided imagery, deep breathing, psycho-spiritual counseling and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) are among the transformative tools that Siegel utilizes to help people begin their own personal transformations. Through EMDR, for example, a psychotherapeutic technique that creates bilateral stimulation of the brain, patients work to heal past traumas in their lives that have taken root on a cellular level and negatively inhibited their ability to heal. Natural adaptive processes are reactivated in the mind and body to help resolve whatever emotional trauma once caused the harm and resulting symptoms. Siegel’s other courses include Awakening Your Light Body, an in-depth meditation workshop that awakens energy centers within us and helps to facilitate healing. A student of ancient North and South American healing arts, she also guides participants along the cyclical path of spiritual transformation in a weekly meditation group on the Shamanic Medicine Wheel.

Join Irene Siegel as she discusses the dynamic relationships within us, between the physical and the mental, the cellular and the emotional. Her lecture will highlight a step-by-step approach to psychotherapy and healing that affords us an unobstructed approach to reducing surface symptoms by proactively working to strengthen our core beliefs. Guided by her knowledge and passion, you, too, will find it possible to pull the “fork” out of your brain and awaken to a new appreciation of what it truly means to be healthy, vibrant and alive.

Irene Siegel, MS, LCSW is co-director of Center Point, in Huntington, NY, where she conducts her clinical practice. She received her master’s degree in Social Work from Columbia University in 1977 and completed advanced clinical training through the Long Island Institute for Mental Health. Ms. Siegel worked for the New York State Mental Health system for 15 years as a clinician and clinical supervisor. She is author of Eyes of the Jaguar, creator of the Labyrinth Series Guided Meditations, and a PhD candidate at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. For more information, visit www.centerpointcounseling.bz or call 631-547-5433.