PSYCHOTHERAPY IN
LAGUNA BEACH
Couples & Individual Psychotherapy
Relationships & Self-Love
in Laguna Beach
Biographic elements and theoretical underpinnings are further below. In the meantime, here are extracts from actual psychotherapy sessions.
General Topics
Couples
About Fabrice
“ My practice is enriched by life experiences and warmth from Europe and Asia. I am supervising therapists in-training and taught psychotherapy in graduate school. I was influenced by my experience of receiving therapy in my late teens, and most profoundly, by my experience of becoming a father.
I view the purpose of therapy as welcoming Self. For self includes at the core vibrancy, courage, and love. This has been my experience with everyone I have worked with thus fas (and with myself as well). To that end, I integrate approaches that regulate the nervous system, cultivate awareness, and invite empathy toward Self - and others.
Prior to psychotherapy I received graduate education in engineering and business administration, I worked in larges businesses and startups. I also studied international relations. I found meaning in my 40’s when I became a therapist. There is something quite healing in providing what I wished I had received growing up. ”
Fabrice Paracuellos, Psychotherapist, Clinical Supervisor, Clinical Director,
LMFT114054
Psychotherapy, an integrative approach
“I view the core purpose of therapy as welcoming Self. With every client I have worked with thus far, we end up discovering that Self, at the core, includes love. When a new client comes to therapy (and that applied to me as well when I started therapy as a client), they either have the notion, implicitly or explicitly, that something inside should not be approached too closely, or is bad. In my practice, none of these perceived qualities of Self end up being true. But we carry those beliefs because along the way, we received messages, sometimes directly, often times implicitly, that something about ourselves may be defective (I am thinking of abuse and neglect, but also of environments which, while materially caring, lack emotional acknowledgment).
Welcoming Self has three “components:” soothing the nervous system (a), developing awareness of Self (b) and forming a warm relationship with Self (c). Soothing the nervous system not only feels good, it lays the groundwork for being able to access Self (and, as a side benefit, it allows us to become more productive). Awareness of Self and the quality of relationship with Self are deeply interwoven. To be anchored, a warm relationship with Self needs to be done in understanding of Self. Else, there may be doubt: am I really embracing Self, or am I only embracing the parts that I see, leaving off the parts of Self that I implicitly deem as unacceptable? (If so, then I don’t really welcome Self.) And developing awareness of Self needs the support of a warm relationship with it. Else, why would I want to consider looking at those parts of Self which I do not accept (yet)?
What I notice is that we still experience external stresses when we get to welcome our Self (presumably because of our cognitive abilities, our sentientness, and our mortality). But these are dampened by the foundation that a warm internal relationship with Self provides. We no longer have to deal with the internal stress of feeling inadequate. The capacities for vibrancy, courage, emotional intimacy, and meaning become freed. We get to feel at home inside and shine in the world.”