Frog Point Therapy
Philosophy
ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL
Frog Point Therapy individualizes all treatment to the specific ways that each person experiences the world. Our approach is evidence-based. Dr. Barimany is a leader in the field of Jungian personality research, and her expertise is in priming human development through a highly individualized approach. Frog Point Therapy specializes in the cultivation of epistemological specialization across a lifetime.
TRANSFORMATION, NOT OBLITERATION
In times of desperation there is a compulsion to “burn it all down” and start over from scratch. We believe that it is transformation—not obliteration—that becomes a vital bridge into the next upshift in development.
Pain, sorrow, discomfort, anger, and despair are wise teachers. In order to get unstuck, the only way out is through these uncomfortable feelings. Going around them traps us in unending cycles of more pain, sorrow, and despair.
REHUMANIZING MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT
Society is in a period of pronounced change. We are recycling old structures, old systems, and old ways of being that have failed to evolve with our developing collective psyche. Frog Point Therapy endeavors to be a leader of change in mental health treatment by evolving old postures of the stereotypical, clinical, and sterile therapeutic relationship of the early 20th century and instead adopting deeply human posture with our clients.
Relationships are sacred in that they allow us to both see ourselves and be seen. In order to truly connect and cultivate transformation, an authentic, intimate, and clear therapeutic relationship is the ‘sine qua non’ of successful therapy.
FPT seeks to lead the charge in changing the tradition of the one-sided relationship between client and therapist in therapy and proliferate a culture shift in the industry of mental health.
Insight
The desire to know oneself is one of human being’s most fundamental wishes—to feel content in our own mind and body. One task of adulthood that if often overlooked is to revisit our values to discover the subtle and unquestioned narratives that have begun to constrain our daily lives. In so doing, we begin the sometimes painful process of transforming our beliefs and re-valuing our lives into something that better fits where we are in life. We begin to know and honor what really matters to us rather than what we have been told to care about. Developing a safe haven inside our own minds can help us stand firm in the hurricane of anxiety, stay focused in the haze of depression, and be undisturbed by the chaos of everyday life.
Awareness
Consciousness is what separates human beings from all other creatures in the world. As we grow, we traverse various stages of consciousness–from the first-person awareness in which we come to know self from other, to second person in which our interpersonal and relational awareness comes online, to third when we can watch both ourselves and others, and then finally into the unbridled, re-embodied planes of metaconscious awareness. Some of these developments happen naturally, but often these stages are ones we have to intentionally and diligently work to transcend. We may get stuck in one stage or another because of cognitive rigidity, trauma, addiction, or depression. The mind has “grow up” just as a child does—this takes patience, focus, and mind-bending work.
Evolve
Agency and integrity are basic human needs for healthy adult development and self-actualization. How do humans transform? How does change happen? The answers can be infinitely complex, but also very simple—do more of the good; do less of the bad. Our limbic system incentivizes pleasure and negatively reinforces pain. We could—and many do—spend our entire lives chasing comfort. Transformation begins when we develop new relationships with old experiences. As we crest into adulthood, we enter into a paradoxical relationship with pain and pleasure: one in which we understand that pain can be a wise teacher and pleasure can be a dangerous rut that stunts our growth. We see nuance in the experience of life; we honor our needs and wishes in ways we were too afraid to do before; we make new choices. We enter into a new and profound relationship with our intrinsic and our extrinsic world and eventually, they become a seamless, integrated totality.
State of the Art
Frog Point Therapy’s philosophy of practice draws from cutting-edge research on human development and modern philosophies that weave together psychology, consciousness studies, and theories of human development. Human beings have universal, basic needs, but they also have specialized psychic cultures of knowing and being. Dr. Barimany’s research on epistemological diversity explains meaningful differences in how people take in data from the intrinsic & extrinsic environment and how they organize & make meaning of those experiences. This research helps explain why two people can be faced with a similar situation but have different—but predictable—experiences of the same reality. These meaningful differences in personality are integrated into Frog Point Therapy’s theory of practice.