Dr. Michelle Miller

Confessions of an NYC Integral Psychotherapist in Private Practice... From time to time my clients ask me How are you able to hold space for so many people in your psychotherapy practice? This insinuates how difficult it must be for me to manage everyone’s problems all week. For me, there is no greater gift in life than the experience of authentically showing up for another human being. The challenging as well as most rewarding aspect of my practice isn’t about diagnosing o...r listening to my clients’ problems, but rather it’s in learning how to genuinely be present enough for them as they bring forth their most wounded and vulnerable parts into the sessionor what have been called the "shadow parts" by Carl Jung. There is no greater pleasure that I’ve experienced than of the immersive process of authentically connecting with clients that synchronistically show up at my door. There is an exchange on a deeper level that unfolds which just can’t be replicated from a stance of separation consciousness. Meaning, if I observe a client and her symptoms from a pathological standpoint and as inherently broken then the deepest form of healing and transformation is halted. My clients might feel satiated for a while with a diagnosis to wrap their minds around and it does serve a purpose for some time, but it is only the starting point for the therapeutic process. Over the years in working with many different forms of mental, emotional & psychic issues with clients from diverse walks of life, I’ve witnessed that the deepest form of genuine integration & sustainable transformation on the experiential level occurs only when the most vulnerable parts of my clients are seen and accepted. It is in this shared therapeutic space where the magic happens and where the most coveted part of my work resides. This is the space in which I've witnessed significant shifts in clients' lives where they are truly able to break through their destructive patterns that they came in with. To acknowledge and validate my clients' vulnerable states is to automatically become immersed in a deeper level of love for humanity as well as for myself; and in that shared space there is a richness beyond all measure.