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Therapy with me may be CBT – cognitive-behavioral therapy – or perhaps a blend of the therapies I practice tailored to best help overcome your disorder or disturbance so you can feel better and have the chance to enjoy life.  Emotional awareness-based CBT is a variation of CBT that I’ve developed that’s uniquely effective for treatment of anxiety disorders – especially Generalized Anxiety Disorder -and anxiety with depression. If you’re drawn to mindfulness meditation and challenged by or struggle with disturbing thoughts, doubts, and tenacious uneasiness, then meditation-based therapy – MBT – might be just what you need.

Therapy with David Mellinger

CBT:  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

(Excerpted, with permission, from the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy website.)

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the term for a group of psychological treatments based on scientific evidence that have proven effective in treating many psychological disorders, including most anxiety disorders. Treatment is goal-oriented and often short-term to resolve present-day problems; through this process, clients can overcome long-standing problems and disorders, as well.

CBT is focused on the ways that a person’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors are all linked, allowing for the therapist to intervene at different points in the cycle of emotional disturbance.  The CBT therapist and the client work together with a mutual understanding that the therapist has theoretical and technical expertise, but the client is the expert on him- or herself.  The therapist seeks to help the client discover that he/she is powerful and capable of choosing positive thoughts and behaviors. Together, they develop goals for therapy, work collaboratively to achieve goals, and track progress throughout the course of treatment.

New-wave CBT strategies  can help

It isn’t uncommon for someone with an anxiety disorder to also suffer from depression, or vice versa. There’s good news, though:  Both disorders are very treatable, separately and together. According to the latest psychological research, to be optimal, therapy for anxiety and depression would likely need to focus explicitly on excessive worry and/or depressive rumination, when present – that is, on “sticky thinking”.

Sticky thinking is the repetitive, negative thinking of anxiety and depression.  Interwoven with strong negative feelings like sadness, guilt , fear, or self-blame, sticky thinking can enmire us too intensely in long, complicated thinking about disturbing matters and amplify the disruptiveness of disturbed sensitive feelings.

A new wave of CBT is uniquely suited for relief of many people’s problems with anxiety and depression:

Cognitive Reappraisal and emotional exposure  might be for you if you’re anxious or depressed, or if you simply worry too much – if you’ve realized your thinking at emotional times is sticky and unworkable and want to take action – to learn effective, scientifically proven techniques to counteract it.  Utilizing Attention Training Techniques, you can develop the capability to shift away from negative trains of thought and toward the immediate environment or incompatible mental processes that counteract the brain mechanisms that sustain your sticky thinking.  Mindfulness techniques like concentration on the breath and abiding with peaceful awareness provide training for shifting to states of mind where you can have negative feelings without getting stuck on a train of thought or caught up in a grim story.  Mindfulness techniques can be honed to effectively counteract sticky thinking.

Emotional Awareness-based CBT (EACBT)

We can only start to feel better once we realize that we’re feeling bad and arrive at a clear sense of what’s really going on.  Besides traditional CBT, I practice a variation dubbed Emotional awareness-based CBT, which helps clients expand their emotional awareness to enable and empower them to work directly on overcoming anxiety disorders and other emotional disturbances.

Clients learn to tune in to disturbing feelings like constant edginess, trepidation, and a sense of becoming flooded or overwhelmed by anxiety or other disturbances, to identify and acknowledge them. When clients overfocus on scary, disturbing stressors, they learn to mentally steady themselves so they can better work with their stress and anxiety. During episodes of disturbing anxiety or depression, our distress may be increased when we’re gripped by “sticky thinking”, when strong emotions like anxiety, sadness, or guilt, or self-blame get interwoven with our thoughts and enmire us too strong and long about disturbing matters and feelings. Uniquely, with EACBT learn “worry-busting” skills to release themselves from its sticky grip.

Expand your awareness of your values, the richness of your feelings, and the things you care enough about to change.

Learn to step through or past the cascade of mental events that draws us down into depression or unnerves and spooks us into anxiety.

Learn how to overcome emotional avoidance starting by deepening your familiarity with yourself emotionally.  Become more aware of your strength and what you value as you become able to work with edginess, trepidation, and the sense of being flooded or overwhelmed and physical tension that sustain disturbing anxiety and worry.

Learn to face your fears while being kinder to yourself using psychological and mindfulness-based techniques of emotional exposure to gather your strength while becoming easier and more accepting of yourself.

Learn to gain the upper hand over unhealthy worry, obsessiveness, rumination, and other types of anxious, sticky thinking.

Learn to augment your trust that you will be okay at anxiety-provoking times. Enhance your acceptance of vulnerability and uncertainty while overcoming your fear and worry.

Meditation-Based Therapy (CBT)
Anxiety and depression can fill people’s minds with repetitive negative thoughts- even predatory worries – entwined with tension and fear. Our values and yearnings often keep flashing through our minds even as we’re caught in the throes of angst. Despite our awareness that our thoughts are irrational and distorted and our feelings disturbed, at times we can’t seem to right them.

Still, many of us who are stuck in negative thinking can learn to ride out the waves of nervous energy. We can remain focused on what we value and hold dear, while instilling and sustaining the awareness that it’s worthwhile to harness this energy to press ahead, regardless of doubt and dread. If you’re drawn to mindfulness meditation and are challenged by or struggle with disturbing thoughts, doubts, and tenacious uneasiness, then MBT might be just what you need.

Although anxiety is commonly perceived as an experience to be shunned, at the core of anxiety and worry is energy seeking access to pathways for living intensely and achieving what is meaningful and important. Meditation-based therapy (MBT) is powerful behavioral medicine–psychotherapy invigorated by mindfulness meditation, an ancient tradition of reflection and contemplation that’s swept into modern psychological thought and practice. Mindfulness is mental training to experience the present with an attitude of openness, freshness, and willingness to engage in the comings and goings of our thoughts, feelings, and sensations.

Many of us literally “worry ourselves sick” when anxiety or depression trouble us: We may concurrently experience physical tension, unsettled stomachs, or disturbed sleep, while our minds are aswirl with edginess, dread, and vulnerability – a disturbing process I’ve dubbed “sticky thinking”.  The perspective of mindfulness meditation, based on this psychology, relates sticky thinking to the bad mental habits of worrying and the sense of being stuck or trapped inside ourselves and controlled by our experiences. Our troubles also relate both to our limited ability to “see what is” – to see ourselves, others, and the world clearly and objectively – and to our deep uneasiness with feeling vulnerable, our reflexive tendency to not trust ourselves and others.

Meditation and MBT can enable us to change and transcend these limitations. Formal meditation and psychological mindfulness both encompass three essential mindfulness meditation skills – focusing your attention, opening your awareness, and enhancing loving kindness. As your MBT therapist interweaves your therapy with these essential skills, you can face your problems afresh as they arise. We’re enabled to tune in to our nature and the nature of our troubles, augmenting our capacity to be kind, not harsh, to ourselves and others, more responsive to the freshness of nature and life experience, and open to the vast possibilities of openness and appreciation.

Many people with anxiety or depression can benefit from treatment with mindfulness-based treatment. Utilizing mindfulness-based techniques, you can become able to abide with disturbing feelings rather than getting drawn into negativity; “unstick” your persistent worry or rumination; prevent bad moods from materializing; and even change long-standing tendencies to worry or brood.

Over-worry and sticky thinking are treatable psychological problems.

We offer you two uniquely effective workshops that will help you overcome worry, anxiety, and panic.

Perhaps you would prefer to learn a powerful integration of mindfulness meditation blended with the skills and strategies of new wave cognitive-behavioral therapy in order to become skillful in overcoming your anxiety and worry. Or would you prefer to cope with anxiety, disturbing worry, panic, and anxiety disorders by mastering training in cutting edge, evidence-supported and evidence-based anxiety therapy strategies taught by the experts.

  • All
  • Upcoming
  • 2015
  • 2016
  • Sat
    09
    Jan
    2016
    Sun
    14
    Feb
    2016

    Peaceful Worrier Workshop

    2-3:30 p.m.17337 Ventura, Suite 310, Encino, CA 91316

    Meeting Days/Times:
    Six Saturdays, 2-3:30 p.m
    January 9 – February 14, 2016

    Location:
    17337 Ventura, Suite 310
    Encino, CA 91316

    Facilitated by David Mellinger & Julie Brams

    This workshop is a 6-week journey of exploration of the healthy, strong ways that mindfulness meditation and traditional and new-wave psychotherapies enable us to respond differently to fear and anxiety. Tailored to each person's lifestyle and unique emotional responses, our therapeutic workshop will blend cutting-edge psychological science with real-time meditation training - proven to expand emotional awareness and reduce habitual reactivity - to enable you to change your relationship with anxiety and worry for your improved well-being.

    Registration is Open
    Enrollment is open now through January 4th. Class requires an initial consultation with David Mellinger or Julie Brams. A fee of $360 is also required on or before Jan. 4th in order to guarantee your place in the class. For more information contact us through this site or call Julie Brams at 818-497-2046 or David Mellinger at 818-716-1695.

  • Sat
    12
    Mar
    2016

    BECOMING THE CALM IN THE STORM

    1:30pm-5:30pmEncino, California

    Feeling Overly Anxious? Worrying Too Much?
    Come Learn to Ease Your Mind In Spite of It All
    with
    Julie Brams, LMFT & David Mellinger, LCSW

    Our therapeutic workshop blends cutting-edge psychological science with real-time meditation training proven to
    expand emotional awareness and reduce problematic reactions to anxious thinking.

    Join us in a half-day exploration of the healthy, strong ways that mindfulness meditation and traditional & new-
    wave psychotherapies can enable you to respond differently to your fear, anxiety, and worry.

    Class is tailored to your individual needs and supported in a safe community of others.

    REGISTRATION OPEN NOW THROUGH FEBRUARY 29th

    *Class requires an initial interview with Julie Brams or David Mellinger and an advance payment
    of $120 before February 29th in order to reserve your space.
    For more information, please call 818-497-2046 or 818-716-1695;
    or visit www.worrybuster.com

  • Sat
    18
    Jun
    2016

    On a Path with Heart

    1:30 pm-5:30 pm23241 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 302, Woodland Hills, CA 91364

    On a Path with Heart, No Longer So Afraid of Fear
    1024px-Meditation-beautiful-autumn-forest-waterfall_-_West_Virginia_-_ForestWander[1]                                                                                from http://www.forestwander.com

    Julia Brams, LMFT & David Mellinger, LCSW

    June 18, 2016

    1:30 – 5:30 pm

       ________________________________________________________________

    One of Two Workshops in the “Peaceful Worrier” Series

    Open to All Levels

    The second of our therapeutic workshops blends cutting-edge cognitive tools with real time meditation training to address disturbing anxiety and correct anxious and worried thinking.

    Join us for a half-day exploration of the healthy, strong ways that mindfulness meditation and traditional & new- wave psychotherapies can enable you  to respond differently to anxiety, fear, and worry.  In this workshop we'll help you explore the healthy, strong ways that meditation and traditional & new-wave psychotherapies can enable you to face your fears with heart and address vulnerability and trepidation - to go forward with less inhibiting fear so you may accomplish what you care about and what’s dearest to your heart. We’ll enable you to continue to overcome your disturbing anxiety and worry through exercising your strength while being good to yourself.

    Registration is open now through June 15th.  This workshop requires an initial consultation with David Mellinger at 818-716-1695 or Julie Brams at 818-497-2046.  The fee is $120.  Please contact us through this website or by phone to David Mellinger or Julie Brams  in order to guarantee your place in the workshop.

  • Sat
    18
    Jun
    2016

    On the Path with Heart

    1:30 pm-5:30 pm23241 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 302, Woodland Hills, CA 91364

    On the Path with Heart – A Half-Day Workshop

    with

    Julie Brams, LMFT and David Mellinger, LCSW

    Saturday, June 18, 2016

    1:30 – 5:30 pm

       ________________________________________________________________

    One of Two Workshops in the “Peaceful Worrier” Series

    Open to All Levels

     

    The “Path with Heart” Workshop is the second of two trainings to enable you to change your relationship to anxiety, fear, and worry.  We’ll help you learn ways to use mindfulness and psychological techniques to face your fears with heart and address vulnerability and trepidation – to go forward with less inhibiting fear so you may accomplish what you care about and what’s dearest to your heart.

    ENROLLEMENT OPEN NOW THROUGH JUNE 15th

    *Workshop requires an initial consultation with Julie Brams or David Mellinger. A fee
    of $120 is also required on or before June 1st in order to guarantee your place in the workshop
    For more information, please call 818-497-2046 or 818-716-1695
    or visit www.worrybuster.com or www.juliebrams.com

  • Sat
    01
    Oct
    2016

    BECOMING THE CALM IN THE STORM

    1:30 pm-5:30 pm23241 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 302, Woodland Hills, CA 91364

    BECOMING THE CALM IN THE STORM

    Are You Overly Anxious and Worrying Much Too Much?

    Attend Our Workshop and Learn to Ease Your Mind

    with

    Julie Brams, LMFT & David Mellinger, LCSW

    October 1, 2016

    1:30-5:30pm

    Our emotions profoundly affect what we care about the most; yet irrational anxiety and excessive worry can interfere with our values, plans, and hopes.  In our therapeutic workshop, learn a unique method that blends cutting-edge psychological science with real-time meditation training proven to expand emotional awareness and reduce your anxiety and worry.

    Please join us for an exploration of the healthy, strong ways that mindfulness meditation and traditional & new-wave psychotherapies can ease persistent, excessive anxiety and worry and expand your emotional awareness and inner calm.

    Our workshop is tailored to your individual needs and in a safe, supported community of others.

    REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN.

    The workshop requires an initial interview with Julie Brams or David Mellinger.    A fee of $120 on or before September 26th is also required in order to guarantee your place in the class.

    For further details,  call 818-497-2046 or 818-716-1695, or visit www.worrybuster.com or www.juliebrams.com

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