Developing internal kindness

Early experiences may leave us prone to anxious feelings, distressing patterns and difficulty feeling at home in ourselves. Developing a kinder internal world can allow for more flexibility and contentment, even during demanding times. 

Therapy

Psychotherapy offers a broad field of opportunity for change, healing and discovery during difficult times.

Informed by psychodynamic training, and trauma and attachment theories, I bring a caring, attentive presence and perceptive intelligence to each session. I am committed to co-creating vital therapeutic relationships that provide discernible benefit to my clients. With sensitivity and humor, I encourage exploration, experimentation, and play.

Therapy begins with our exploring the challenges, questions and hopes that bring you to seek support now. Together we establish goals for your therapy and look at ways to improve your wellbeing immediately. As you continue, we may choose to go deeper into habitual behaviors, thought patterns or experiences that impede your vitality, connection and peace.

The length of therapy and frequency of sessions are flexible. Brief therapies of three to twelve sessions can be effective for addressing a specific behavior or gaining insight into a challenging relationship or transition. (For example, improving sleep, or learning grounding skills.) Longer-term, open-ended or in-depth therapy may be indicated for more complex or longstanding difficulties. (For example, the loss of a spouse to death or divorce; coping with a life-changing medical diagnosis; difficulties in relationships.) Generally, appointments are sixty minutes long. 

Services are offered at my comfortable office on Providence's East Side, on the southern edge of Brown University’s campus. Here are my office policies.

Consultation

I am available to licensed clinicians for consultation in person and via phone. My areas of focus include:

- Psychotherapy and trauma-informed mindfulness approaches for people living with complex medical & pain management needs. I am experienced with the clinical challenges of supporting clients with cancer, organ & bone marrow transplant, diabetes, Hepatitis C and chronic Hepatitis B infection, HIV disease, cancer, and/or celiac disease.

- Clinical crisis response and risk management.

- Assisting clinicians who wish to cultivate trauma-informed clinical mindfulness and self-compassion practices.

Hello, I'm Seguin. I'm glad you're here.

I was trained in psychodynamically-oriented psychotherapy at Smith College School for Social Work (MSW, 2007) and am licensed to practice clinical social work independently in Rhode Island and California. In 2016 I completed a post-graduate certificate course in End of Life and Palliative Care at Smith College School for Social Work.

As an oncology social worker at Stanford Health Care from 2014 to 2016, I stood by patients and families facing difficult treatment decisions, end-of-life choices, and experiences of grief and loss. I worked as a mobile psychiatric crisis team clinician for adults impacted by HIV at the University of California, San Francisco from 2007 to 2011. More recently I provided care to hospice patients in Massachusetts.

I began meditating in 1995 and lived at San Francisco Zen Center's City Center and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center as a resident practitioner for six years. In addition to sitting many long silent retreats, I have participated in workshops and retreats in the field of therapeutic mindfulness, including Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli; and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy with Marsha Linehan, Ph.D. From 2010 to 2013, I was a guest facilitator for Dr. Lee Lipp's on-going Transforming Anxiety & Depression practice classes held at San Francisco Zen Center. I'm grateful to Lee for years of friendship and mentoring. Lee passed away in August of 2016 and is deeply missed. 

After spending my adult years in San Francisco, Japan and Taiwan, it's a joy to return to Providence.

Seguin Sellards Spear 

LICSW 02661 Rhode Island | LICSW 121700 Massachusetts | LCSW 27100 California

Fox Point Consulting & Psychotherapy, LLC