Encourage Encounter LLCFor the purposes of our work with clients, we consider a person’s sense of self to be the consequence of a person’s experiences. Other therapeutic approaches, which focus on a client’s sense of self and it’s associated stories, emphasize working on the consequence of distressing experiences rather than working directly with the distressing experience. We believe working directly with the wounding experience is much more productive.

Our approach emphasizes attributes of exposure-based therapy within the context of embodied cognition. We encourage the clients to track and understand the emotions and feelings which are evoked every time the client reviews their challenging experiences. Assuming the client has the necessary internal resources, direct contact with the distress experience evokes the innate processes of creating resolution. Therapists can facility this process, strengthening the opportunity for meaningful resolution and healing.

Many clients might not have the necessary capacity to stay in direct contact with their distressing experiences. For such clients, it appropriate to practice “resourcing experiences” first. We might also encourage them practice on experiences analogous to the specific distressing experience.

Clients often make significant progress on their distressing experiences through the work on resourcing- and analogous-experiences. As those signs of process strengthen and persist, then they can work directly on their specific challenges.

Our approach leverages innate skills and processes. Accordingly, therapists can also engage their clients with a “coach and practice” model in addition to the traditional therapy model. This style of engagement

can shift the general direction of therapy from “resolution-seeking” to “capacity-development.” In other words, clients gain greater ability to seek out their distressing challenges and actively manage their process of creating resolution. A therapist is a critical resource in this process, much like any mentor.

Therapists who include aspects of our approach enhance their value to the client. Typically, clients gain more emotionally powerful, up-lifting experiences of distress resolution when the challenges are addressed directly. Because of these peak experiences, they are more likely to remain clients and are more likely to provide the therapist with endorsements and referrals.

We also work with life coaches, counselors, healers and other support professions whose client focus is on people who feel Stuck? In addition to helping support professionals incorporate our Stuck? … Encourage … Encounter … Move! approach, we help them improve their client attunement and communication skills and develop the ability to adapt their support style to the primary client orientations - Productivity, Vitality and Wholeness.

We work with therapists and other support professionals so they can enhance the scope and success of their practices by incorporate these approaches. We charge an hourly fee. Please contact us for more details.

We meet with consulting clients either through Skype or other video services or in our offices in St Louis. We also travel to other cities throughout the year. We charge supplemental $100 per hour for meetings outside St Louis. If you’d like to be notified when we travel to a city near you, please sign up…