Janice Geller, MA, LPC, LMBT, BC-DMT

Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Massage and Bodywork Therapist, Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist, Certified Teacher and Practitioner of Body-Mind Centering, and Authentic Movement Facilitator.

BIO: Janice’s unique approach to psychotherapy is called Integrative Counseling, which is a therapeutic and educational approach to psychological and physical health. Integrative Counseling integrates psychotherapy with mindfulness practices, body awareness, movement therapy, and therapeutic touch. She has over 30 years of clinical experience working with people of all ages and is trained in many different forms of traditional counseling, including Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy and Jungian–Dream work.  Janice is also considered an expert and leader in the emerging field of Body-Mind Centering, and has taught this work at universities, and workshops in both the US and Europe.  Janice also leads trainings in Authentic Movement, a C.G. Jungian Dance/Movement Therapy form. She has also explored through workshops, trainings and readings several somatic oriented therapies including Somatic Experiencing, Focusing, Craniosacral Therapy, and Interpersonal Neurobiology. Prior to her work as a psychotherapist, and certified teacher and practitioner of Body-Mind Centering, Janice was a professional dancer.  She feels that her years as a professional dancer, teacher and choreographer have added an emphatic understanding of the body and its knowledge. In addition to her private practice, she currently teaches at Duke University, and the Body-Mind Centering programs in Durham, North Carolina, Paris, France and Germany, and was a featured speaker at the American Academy of Psychotherapists Conference 2009.  She has also presented at the Across the Threshold: Creativity, Being and Healing Conference at Duke University in 2010 and 2013.  For more info, please visit her website: www.trianglecenterforintegrativetherapy.com.

Sections in this interview:

1.) You have a unique approach to therapy and the healing process that few clinicians have.  Can you briefly describe your approach to your client work?
2.) What are some of the modalities that you use when working with clients?
3.)  Could you describe a typical scenario where you may lead the client to do something more in the creative arts, like using theater, drawing work or the sand tray?
4.) From your experience, how long goes it take for a client in therapy to get better?
5.) You are an expert in something called Body-Mind Centering.  Could you define Body-Mind Centering and explain how you this is used in your therapeutic work?
6.) Can you briefly walk me through your treatment process from start to finish, to give others a sense of what it might be like to work with you?
7.)  What do you mean by the term grounding?
8.) How would you work with a client that presents with both psychological and physical concerns, like chronic pain or an injury?
9.) You are quite knowledgeable and skilled, but your sense of presence and openness as a person is quite powerful…just curious to know if you have any comments about that?
10.) What would you say is one of your greatest joys from your work with clients?
11.)  What do you mean by the term “selfing”?
12.) I know that you do a lot of work with mothers, fathers and babies.  Can you talk about that?

1.) Kim Pratt (KP): You have a unique approach to therapy and the healing process that few clinicians have.  Can you briefly describe your approach to your client work?

Janice:  I believe that the uniqueness of Integrative Counseling rests in the fact that I utilize traditional psychotherapeutic theories and interventions, as well as less traditional interventions including bodywork, body awareness, movement, and the creative arts. My experience has been that these different processes can provide a more embodied, deeper and richer pathway to growth than talk therapy alone.

Mindfulness and awareness are core foundations of my work.  Mindfulness is bringing awareness to one’s body, and one’s inner world – one’s thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories, and images, as well as each individual’s unique perceptions and interpretations of themselves in the world.  In psychotherapy sometimes there’s a distinction between what are body focused interventions, spiritual practices, and what are more psychological processes, but in the work that I do, it’s seen more as a unification of one’s whole being.  Whether that’s working more from one’s body, from the mind, or one’s spiritual inquiry, I believe they all inform each other.

Next Question: 2.) What are some of the modalities that you use when working with clients?