Relendra Kaia

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

At the core of my therapeutic approach is Acceptance and Commitment therapy, which employs mindfulness and non-identification with thoughts and emotions to foster courage and self-agency in response to challenging mental and emotional states. By identifying deeply held values and understandings of self and being, clients are able to locate and commit to a chosen life path and achieve freedom from fear in embracing a vibrant life.

Psychodynamic 

Often understood an synonymous with depth therapy, psychodynamic approaches apply insights regarding the patterns and structure of psychological processes to a client's personal history and current experience, helping to deconstruct and integrate internal trauma complexes and prohibitions in support of individual freedom, authenticity, and personal development. Shame and internal conflict is resolved through a parts-of-self approach to the psyche, emphasizing self-love and compassion.

Narrative 

An emphasis on psychological flexibility means keeping one foot in one approach and the other foot in its complimentary approach. Whereas ACT and psychodynamic processes seek to liberate the psyche from established and internalized, rigid narratives, narrative therapy explores possible replacement narratives and alternate narrative approaches to life and being, guiding the client toward a concept of Self and World that facilitates a vibrant and purposeful experience of living.

Transpersonal

Concomitant with ACT, psychodynamics, and narrative approaches is the role of the spiritual in the Self's approach to life, being, and the World. This is understood as identifying and accepting the fundamental mystery of Being that transcends understanding and requires deep trust and courage to confront. Transpersonal psychotherapy emphasizes the mystical experience of being, transcendent of ego-identification, bringing increased freedom to the client through radical openness.

Nonviolent Communication

In addition to its role in facilitating productive, relationship-fostering communication patterns, and the accessibility of healthy, well-boundaried relationships, NVC is also a philosophical approach to life grounded in love, compassion, giving, and respect for all beings and the free agency of all beings, especially including oneself. I offer application of NVC principles to clients in navigating their relationships with others and themselves, in support of sustained healing and wellness.

PTSD

In my years of study and practice as a psychotherapist, I have found that trauma, specifically attachment trauma, sustained in childhood form the core of most psychological suffering experienced by adults, other than those caused by physiological phenomena, including chronic depression, anxiety and trauma activation symptoms (dissociation, panic, freezing, emotional flashbacks, and so forth. Identifying these traumas and their impact on the psyche is key to healing and recovery.

Loss or Grief

It is my further experience that trauma complexes and the symptom manifestation that accompanies them are in turn, psychological systems created as a protection and barrier against encountering grief at the deepest level of being. For healing to occur, this grief must be confronted and integrated into an understanding and peace reached with the experience of living, the necessity of grief as a counterpart to love, and the capacity to open the heart and move forward in life unchained by fear.

Codependency

The systems of trauma and grief that form the basis of psychological suffering are manifested in personal relationships and self-concept in a network of phenomena that can loosely be termed codependency - characterized by boundary confusion, chronic shame processes, susceptibility to gaslighting, and accepting exploitation and manipulation by others. Learning effective boundary-setting and communication skills, and dismantling gaslighting wounds can help clients reclaim self agency and love.

Spirituality

Healing from core interpersonal and attachment traumas and integrating the grief that accompanies them requires achieving a healed relationship between Self and World: the primary attachment relationship of being. I offer clients assistance in exploring their personal beliefs regarding spirit, being, purpose, meaning, and existence, helping to dispel harm caused by past spiritual exploitation or manipulation, and establishing a relationship of trust, love, and forgiveness toward Self and World.

Gender Identity

Since the public backlash against transgender people began in earnest in 2022, life has became increasingly painful for many trans people, brings feelings of betrayal, heartbreak, and alienation due to society's normalization of cruelty and scapegoating toward trans people. I bring years of lived experience as a trans woman and provision of care and affirmation to trans clients to my psychotherapy work, including assistance in navigating transition options including medical transition.