David Shapiro

When people ask me why I became a psychologist, the fact that I'm a psychologist leads me to give kind of complex answers so please bear with me. The first thing that I would tell you is there's a very personal level, to why I became a psychologist and it has to do with my own parents divorce, and then some of the challenges that I myself and my family experienced afterwards. And as a result of those experiences. I was left with the desire to want to be of service to other families and people going through similar kinds of trials and take my challenges, and be able to make them be a value to others. And so that's a very personal level, to this. And then, on a different level. I will tell you that initially in college I was studying acting, and I was studying approach to acting called method acting, which involves really an internal process of kind of connecting to internal memories and experiences in order to bring forth a character, or, you know, real experience on stage or on film. And in that process, I ended up taking psychology classes just to better understand people's motivation and conflicts. Well, as things would go, I ended up being a lot better at the psychology than I was at the acting. And so there was this point at which I thought hey, you know, maybe I'll just take those qualities that helped me, you know, be interested in theater and they'll apply them in a new area, which I've now done with psychology. And so, throughout my work as a psychologist, I've continued to connect with some of those things that that also led me to be interested in acting such that, I've had a radio show. I've done things like psychodrama, and really therapy itself involves using oneself as an instrument and so there's been a way in which having that background in theatre is blended actually quite nicely with with psychology. Now a third level is also pretty interesting, which is that, as I've gone along in my life, I've taken an interest in Buddhism, and I've, I've not only studied Buddhism, but I've actually now evolved to a point where I'm teaching meditation and Buddhist philosophy and practice. And as part of that, something that has now become clear, is that my, my role as a psychologist is actually perfectly aligned with my spiritual commitments to try to help liberate other people and other beings from from suffering and from misery. And so, what's, what's kind of curious is that it wasn't completely intentional, from, from the beginning, but now, something that had started off, you know, early on in my life, growing out of some, some difficulty that I had, and then got flavored by some of my experience in college and my interest in theater and how that led me to psychology classes, has now even more fully and richly blended with some of my, my spiritual commitments and values, as, as a Buddhist student practitioner and teacher. Now, bringing up the Buddhism is also kind of interesting because, although I don't try to push any particular belief system on people and in fact, many of my clients come from various backgrounds such as Christianity, Judaism, Hindu is Muslim faith. What, what is the case, is that I'm very much focused on supporting people in finding ways to liberate themselves and doing that in a way that's consistent with whatever their beliefs are. And so, by saying that I am teaching or sharing things from Buddhism doesn't mean that I'm trying to proselytize or convert somebody to any particular belief system, so I just thought I would share that as well. Having now kind of rambled and giving you a very complex answer I hope that at least gives you a little bit of a flavor for me and what brought me to this field and maybe some of the things that it connects to in my own life, but what I think would also be interesting, is to now see how I might be able to help you. So, if you found some of that interesting or at least informative and you wanted to know. See how that might have value to you, please don't hesitate to reach out to me and I'd be glad to offer you a free video consultation and we can maybe talk through some of the things that you'd like to change new life and see how I might be able to assist with that, thanks a lot for taking the time to learn more about me and I hope that we can talk soon. Take care, bye bye.

Hello. So you're considering therapy, but you're not sure exactly how or if to move forward. I thought I would offer you a little bit of information. The first thing I would do as I would tell you that you don't have to be sick. Many people come to therapy in order to grow or to overcome some barrier in an area of life, despite being actually very well functioning in most other areas. The other thing I would tell you is it doesn't have to take an extremely long time, and it doesn't have to be extremely costly. My approach to therapy involves empowering people, in order to access the resources, both inside of themselves and to find practices and things that are available to them in their lives that they can continue to thrive, well beyond the time that I meet with them. And so the actual number of sessions that people have, oftentimes is not very large, and the cost is not very great. The third thing I would tell you is, it doesn't have to be a cookie cutter approach that's applied to you, if you work with somebody who has a lot of experience and is skilled, they can work with you to figure out exactly what it is that you want to accomplish, and then partner with you and coming up with a plan for bringing that into fruition. And if it isn't working out for you, that person should be able to make adjustments based upon your experience, and any feedback that you would give. So there's a lot more that I can, you know, help you kind of evaluate and consider if you're thinking about therapy or if you're thinking about therapy with me, but I wanted to at least give you those little bit of information to just get started and to invite you that if you would be interested, perhaps we could have a consultation, maybe a free online consultation, and I can answer any questions that you have and maybe speak with you a little bit more specifically about what it is that you want to accomplish and how I might be able to help you do that, thanks a lot for checking out my video and I look forward to hopefully talking to you soon.

Okay, so here is a mouthful. Let me tell you, I am American, Buddhist psychologist, practicing in Asia, who now through the miracle of the internet is also working with and practicing with the people back home in California. So it's all come very full circle. But a kind of interesting, unique thing about me that I would share is that I am actually physically in Asia. Right now I'm in Singapore. I'm soon to return to Thailand where I had initially moved after leaving California. And I found that now by working with people online, I'm able to transcend space, and to be able to continue to care for people back home. And in so doing, I think that it's kind of interesting because I'm able to bring to people, things that I'm benefiting from here in Asia, while also still having a very strong Western psychologist background. And so, among those things are my practice and teaching of meditation and mindfulness, but maybe even on a little deeper level. There are values of loving kindness and compassion that are so beautiful, and are inherent to the people and culture of Thailand, that I am finding very valuable to infuse in my work as a psychologist. So, you know, I'd love to share with you more about that and to see how that may have value to you, but I guess the little secret that I would tell you is, even though my practice is still being run out of California, I'm not in California, yet I'm concerned for people who are. So I hope that that will pique your interest and I would love to discuss with you your situation. I'm offering free online consultations with folks and that might give us a chance to sort through, you know, some of what it is that you're experiencing and looking for and to see how I might be able to be of assistance. So I hope that that piqued your interest and I'll look forward to hopefully talking to you soon. Take care, bye bye.

So what does a typical session with me look like. First of all, I would tell you that there is no cookie cutter, and I really mean to adjust what I'm doing with each person is based upon their unique needs, preferences and requirements for their situation. And so, you know that having been said, I will tell you that in a general sense what I like to do is I like to start off by just checking in with a person, and I find out how things are going. Oftentimes they'll share with me a follow up from the past session, things that they've thought about, or maybe they had had some sort of follow up that they were going to do either someone in their life or some, some change that we're going to try to apply or some skill that they're going to be working on and they'll share with me how that went. And then usually together we'll kind of figure out what it is that they're needing in whatever phase they're in, and then we'll set about trying to do something which will move them forward for that area. Sometimes that may involve teaching them a skill, sometimes that may involve more deeply processing the reactions to some event or some things that they're struggling with on the inside. Sometimes they may even, it may even involve leading them through some kind of an internal process. And so, those kinds of internal processes could be considered like a guided meditation or a clinical hypnosis session. Trauma reprocessing if you really begin can vary greatly, based upon the needs of each person and where they are and so forth. Depending upon also who I'm working with. This could also vary because if I'm working with a couple or with a parent and a teenager. Some of that can involve supporting them and communicating with each other. And then after that, kind of, whatever that corrective intervention, I guess we would say it is. Then there's the thinking about what the next step in the person's development is, and what would help them in that process. And so this is where we start now thinking about what sorts of follow up the person might do between our next session, sometimes this involves making recommendations to them about skills that they could practice or books they might find helpful even, you know recordings or other resources that they might access to support whatever the growth is that they're needing or wanting and and then usually that kind of involves some kind of a kind of a follow up plan. You know, some people call that homework. I don't really think about it that way because it's really, you know, just kind of helping them identify something that they could do, of course, if they didn't, then we could easily follow up on that next session. It isn't school where we're where, you know, there is the authority who's going to be critical if they don't do something, it's really for them to decide whether they would find that helpful, but generally that's the structure so there's, there's kind of a checking in figuring out where a person's at, Then there's doing something that's going to move them forward in some way. And then there's figuring out how that can be supported and followed up on before our next session. And that's kind of, you know, very, very broad strokes, you know, probably typical structure of most therapies, but the details can vary greatly, and the good thing is is that, you know, because of my years of experience and the various development opportunities that I've had. I'm able to really offer a whole host of different types of approaches and strategies, and be able to morph those you know to each individual in a very unique way. And that's just something that comes with experience, expertise, so I would really value the chance to talk to you about what it is that you're particularly looking for and then maybe together we can talk about what sorts of sessions would be of value to you, and, and one way that we could do that is through a free online consultation which I offer and it would be it would be great if we could just take a few moments and think through those things to see if I might be the one to be of assistance to you so I hope that gives you a little bit of a kind of general idea about what I do within therapy, and hopefully we could think about the particulars about how that could apply to you. I hope to talk to you soon. Take care.

Well this is a question that I hoped would come up. So the question is, what's my experience with mindfulness based therapy. And this is incredibly close to home, something that I really find intrinsic to my practice and I'm glad to talk to you about it. So one of the things that's a little bit unique about my practice and I've shared about this a little bit in some of the prior videos but I'll say it again, is I'm not only a psychologist, but I'm also a Buddhist practitioner and teacher. For the past 12 years, I've been studying with a variety of Buddhist teachers including intensive mentoring with Buddhist monks. For four years, as well as going on retreats with some, some pretty renowned teachers. I have studied a variety of mindfulness and meditation approaches, including, you know, something called Mahamudra, something called Dzogchen. And also there are these deep absorption states that are called Dhyanas, that I've also had a lot of intensive training in, but one of the really interesting things is how I've now been able to integrate, working with people with mindfulness and meditative techniques in order to complement psychotherapy, both individual psychotherapy but also in my work with couples, and, and parents and children and families. So, it's been pretty interesting but but one of the things that I've really been interested in is to understand exactly what it is that I'm doing and why it's effective, and so I just want to share with you a little bit about that. One of the things that I would say is that there are a couple of distinct nervous system states that we know about, in psychology, one is called the sympathetic nervous system state which is aligned with the feelings of fight, flight, and freeze you know it's it's how we, we deal with emergencies, it's a very reactive. Nervous System state where you know we're stress hormones like adrenaline are released, and it's good for responding to emergencies, but it's not so good for some other things. There's, in contrast, a state called the parasympathetic nervous system state, which is really calm, open aware. And so one of the things that I've come to realize is that if people want to be able to be flexible and want to be able to learn new ways of responding, and want to be able to explore their thoughts and being able to perhaps form more balanced ways of thinking about and understanding situations the things we do in cognitive cognitive behavioral therapy. It's extremely important to help a person learn how to get out of that reactive state first. And the same is true actually, what I've come to realize is when I'm working with people in terms of their communication, resolving of conflicts. So often, what I've what I've come to realize is that therapists will try to counsel people in how to relate to their spouse or their child or their parent in new ways, while the parties are very upset and stirred up, which is not the right state to be able to be flexible. So one of the things that, that I have now really gotten a lot of positive results with is helping people to first get themselves into the right emotional state before trying to do those things. Now once a person is in that emotional state. You can also work with cultivating particular attitude. And so some examples would be, compassion, loving kindness, all of which can can then lead a person to respond very differently once they start communicating or doing some sort of inner person interpersonal type type of a process. And, and so again, by helping people be able to not only quiet themselves, but then intentionally cultivate a particular attitude, I'm finding that my clients are able to be a lot more successful in, in learning new and more useful ways of responding in to other people in their important relationships. And then of course, you know, there's this interesting interaction of mindfulness and meditation, with the area that's called Clinical hypnosis. One of my mentors Dr Michael Yapko recently wrote a book called mindfulness and hypnosis, in which he, he really points out that a lot of mindfulness practices, actually, are one in the same with with clinical hypnosis, states, and methods. And so what I've actually been able to integrate this by helping people learn how to get into some of these calm inwardly focused states. Then comes opportunity to use those states in instrumental ways in therapy, and, and not just in terms of supporting types of responding people, but also supporting people and being able to change some of their core beliefs and ways of thinking, which can be done through techniques such as clinical hypnosis, and by supporting people in developing something like a meditative technique. I'm actually helping them learn how to quickly go into a state which then can be adapted for something such as, as use of trance, in the therapeutic process as well. So, my answer, perhaps a bit rambling, is really kind of gives a bit of a flavor for some of the ways that I worked with mindfulness and integrate that with therapy, and it'll be really interesting to explore with you if that's something that you would be interested in. Tt's not something that's necessary for my clients to do and there are many of my clients that I don't do, you know, mindfulness work with, but for those who are receptive and interested, many are really valuing the ways that I blend that with, with more traditional types of therapy. So, it would be worthwhile if you'd be interested to talk about some of your interests and what it is attempting to accomplish. One thing that I offer my prospective clients is a chance to just visit online for a free consultation, and I hope you'll take me up on that and maybe we can see if, working with mindfulness consciousness is something that would benefit, what you're looking to accomplish. So, I hope to hear from you, and hopefully we can talk soon. Take care, bye bye.

You know, I have this question myself so the question is, how can you provide care remotely. And to tell you the truth I didn't realize that it was as effective as it is. For a number of years, I only worked with people in an office. And it was only actually with COVID, and the fact that people couldn't come into the office that I started doing my sessions online, only to find out that they were actually extremely helpful to the majority of my clients, and it was, it was really quite an eye opener. Now of course, online therapy is not for everybody, it's not good for folks who are, you know in serious crises or suicidal or those kinds of things and there are certain types of conditions that make it difficult for folks to engage in online therapy but from the types of people that I work with, and the types of issues that my clients have it has just turned out to be, I think in some ways, even maybe better than meeting in person. One reason is that you don't have to spend an hour each way, commuting so that just takes three hours out of your day. And another thing that's really interesting is, and, and I've answered this on some of my prior videos but I'll share this now a curious thing about my practice is that I am an American California licensed psychologist who's currently living in Asia. And so, the, the most amazing outgrowth of all of this is I've now begun again working with people back home through the internet, and, and it's, it's really working out just just fine just perfectly. So, it's enabling me to be here in Asia and be having this very rich experience that I'm able to infuse and and make useful to my clients, while at the same time caring for people who can completely relate to me as a Californian, who knows exactly what they're experiencing back home. And of course there's the fact that insurance will pay for my services with people back home, as a California licensed psychologist, same way as if I was being in person so, so there's also that interesting kind of cool factor there. But the thing that I would mostly tell you is that online therapy, although not perfect for everybody has really turned out to be incredibly effective and meaningful, and my experience is that people are liking it and benefiting from it tremendously. So one way that you could check that out, is I'm offering free online consultations with people who are considering working with me, and maybe we could, you know, test it out, see what it feels like to meet this way, and also talk through what it is that you're looking for and what you're needing to maybe explore if I might be able to meet that need. Through the miracle of the internet, I have a secure online therapy platform that's incredibly easy to navigate, people are able to access their super bills for submitting to their insurance, they're able to just very easily make their payments and get online, reminders, everything, everything kind of goes like clockwork, without my having to actually have a physical office. So I hope that maybe you'll check it out and see that it could be very useful and appropriate for you as well, so I hope to hear from you, and I hope that we can talk soon. Take care.