Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstances.

~ James Allen, As a Man Thinketh

Approach to Therapy & Supervision

Welcome to Mind Point Psychotherapy, PLLC! As a licensed psychotherapist and AAMFT Approved Supervisor, I integrate a process-focused existential-humanistic approach to therapy and clinical supervision. My approach couples systemic theories with existential-humanistic psychology to consider lifespan development, identity, cultural, relational, historical, and systemic influences. I emphasize the importance of thinking critically about the values and ethics our worldview comprises - with attention to how values and ethics show relationally. 

My Embrace of Innovation

According to Mahoney (1991), increasing numbers of individuals report novel ways of knowing and experiencing their lives, selves, and relationships as expressed through consciousness, affect, personal identity, and intentionality. What Mahoney described as an axial shift in human understanding has expanded exponentially in the last three decades - influencing the domains of experience, story, and action (Gilligan & Price, 1993) that comprise contemporary culture. This shift has significant implications for the advancement of theory and practice. An embrace of Innovation in praxis is at the forefront of my supervision and clinical work. I encourage innovative work as a contribution to the sustainability of clinical practice.     


Process-Oriented 

The most important domains of human understanding and professional assistance lie not so much in the contents of personal realities as in their ongoing processes.

~Michael J. Mahoney, Human Change Processes

The starting point in a personal course of psychotherapy is always in the present (Ruesch, 1961). A process-focused approach respectfully examines relational experience evidenced behaviorally specific to what is happening in the here and now. Typically, a process-focused lens views what's currently happening as fodder for functional insight to what may be happening similarly in multiple areas of a client's life, what happened in the past and what can be reasonably anticipated to happen again. Hofman, Hayes and Lorscheid (2021), define process as theory-based, dynamic, progressive, contextually bound, modifiable and occurring at multi-levels. 

Sequential Practice

The overarching framework and conceptual base I use for psychotherapy and clinical case consultation is based on the sequential practice of therapeutic Assessment, Goal development and Interventions (AGI). This practical approach is designed to scaffold client experience and treatment efforts in praxis. This means, therapeutic progress and case consults are focused, first and foremost, on a thorough assessment of the concerns that bring a client to therapy. A rich exploration of the presenting concern has favorable implications for therapeutic impact and, moreover, is necessary for establishing a transformative goal with the client. The client goal, likewise, has significant implications for the course of therapeutic interventions


The Art of Therapeutic Assessment

An accepted disparity between the values we profess and the actions we take becomes embedded in our customs.

~John Gardner, Morale

A therapeutic assessment differs from a diagnostic assessment's aim to categorize experience. In a therapeutic assessment, the aim is to narrow a presupposed gap between the client's described and lived experience - while gathering more accurately representative and reliable assessment data. 

The therapeutic assessment is focused on the client's initially reported presenting concern. According to Watzlawick, Weakland & Fisch (1975), in order to be solved, a problem, first of all, has to be a problem and the translation of a vaguely stated problem into concrete terms permits the crucial separation of problems from pseudo problems (p. 111). Additionally, a therapeutic assessment generates experience-anchored process-grounded functional insights for the client - maximizing the outcome gains from the assessment phase. This approach assures clients connect to, and find value in, their respective lived experience (Satir, 1988). A focused assessment of the presenting concern is vital to the course of therapy, as we cannot know in which direction we need to grow, until we first know where we are (Chaleff, 2009, p.38). 

Goal Development Prompts Growth Opportunities

Our wishes are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with our thoughts and actions.

~ James Allen, As a Man Thinketh 

Change may be frightening for some clients—hence, the goal phase may initial the most therapeutically impactful phase in psychotherapy. Working to define and act on a goal may require clients to become vulnerable in a manner distinct from what's needed to share about a past or current problem. There may be a heightened vulnerability in stating a desire, need, want or long-standing dream - while taking action to fulfill a goal may be powerfully challenged by homeostasis. Whether naming or acting on a goal, there is more at risk than in discussing the initially reported presenting concerns.  

The good news is goal development offers growth opportunities. Going further, the goal development phase may be the therapeutically richest part of psychotherapy. Engaging daily activities toward a long-standing desire requires activating personal agency, congruence, ethics, hope, integrity, purpose, virtues, and vulnerability—particularly important for clients who have experienced frustrated needs, trauma, poverty, protracted marginalization, and/or perceive a foreshortened future.  


Systems Thinking as Conceptual Framework

Systems thinking is best summarized as: “Attention to organization, to the relationship between parts, to the concentration on patterned rather than on linear relationships, to a consideration of events in the context in which they are occurring rather than an isolation of events from their environmental context.” (Steinglass, 1978).

The systems framework requires a conceptual shift that goes against the linear, cause and effect, explanatory quest historically and culturally rooted in scientific thinking.  Asking what and how interactional questions versus individually oriented why questions are easier said than done - yet, the very practice of doing so (that is, a focus on mutual-causes interactions) is the cornerstone of systemic therapy.  


Exploring, Inquiring, Narrowing & Expanding

People are anxious to improve their circumstances but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.

~James Allen, As a Man Thinketh

Ambiguities abound in everyday narratives and are often resolved tacitly—without our explicit awareness —in the vast majority of cases (Mahoney, 1991). Connecting clients explicitly to their lived experience through active exploratory process contributes to favorable therapeutic outcomes for clients, more accurately representative assessments for clinicians (Gilligan & Price, 1993; Ruesch, 1961), and is key to assessing the presenting concern(s) reported for therapy by clients - particularly when clients are mystified, or their experience is befuddled by ambivalence.

Exploring, inquiring, narrowing, and expanding a client’s report, in contrast to the therapist's perception, projection, and interpretation, provides meaningful discourse on the client’s presenting concern(s) and facilitates anchoring the client's goal. 

Respectfulness is critical to therapeutic inquiry - which is diminished when clients are questioned. 


The Dilemma of Change

There are only two tragedies in life: not getting what you want—and getting it.

~ Oscar Wilde, Lady Windmere's Fan

A concretely defined and practically reachable goal safeguards the client against getting caught up in homeostasis and compounding/repeating rather than taking new actions (Watzlawick, Weakland & Fisch, 1974, p. 111). Once a single transformative client goal is established, there is additional therapeutic value in exploring the concerns that may keep clients from reaching their goal. Therapists who fail to explore the risks a client may face in reaching their goal, unwittingly facilitate their client's return to homeostasis - dynamic self-stabilizing processes.


H. Luis Vargas, PhD, MFT

Theories and Interventions

I have extensive in-depth knowledge of a wide variety of theories - including the foundational systemic theories and evidence-based approaches. I value creativity and non-conventional approaches. I will work with creative/original and uniquely integrated models in progress. As a supervisor, this means I will work with your theory of choice, not my own.


References

Chaleff, I. (2009). The courageous follower; standing up to and for our leaders (3rd ed.). Berrett-Koehler Publishers, inc. 

Gilligan, S., & Price, R. (Eds.). (1983). Therapeutic conversations (1st ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.

Hofman, S., Hayes, D., & Lorscheid, D.N. (2021). Learning process-based therapy.  New Harbinger Publications. 

Mahoney, M.J., (1991). Human change processes. Basic Books

Ruesch, J. (1961). Therapeutic conversation. W.W. Norton & Company. 

Satir, V. (1988). The new people making. Science and Behavior Books, Inc.

Steinglass, P. (1978). The conceptualization of marriage from a systems theory perspective. In Paolino T. J., McCrady B. S. (Eds.), Marriage and marital therapy: Psychoanalytic, behavioral, and systems theory perspectives (pp. 298-306). New York, NY: Brunner/Mazel Publishers.

Watzlawick, P., Weakland, J. H. & Fisch, R. (1974). Change (1st ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.