Paula Rohrbaugh
Private Practice
Psychologist
Salem, Oregon
United States
Highest Degree Held: Ph.D.
Types of Clients: Adults, Couples
Languages spoken: English
Licensures/Certifications: Oregon License to practice Psychology
ACT/CBS Background and Training: Have read many ACT books, watched a number of DVD's, took a series of webinars with Dr. Kevin Polk.
ACT/CBS Experience: Have been working on integrating ACT into my practice of Cognitive and REBT approaches.
Additional Information: I use a behavioral and learning theory foundation for understanding behavior, and have long considered thoughts to operate like habits (with some modifications.) I also have always subscribed to the basic conditions of Carl Rogers--congruence, empathy, and basic respect for a person--as necessary conditions of psychotherapy. I also have long utilized Wolpe's principal of reciprocal inhibition--the way to get rid of dysfunctional behavior is to replace it with one that works at least as well to accomplish the need. And this requires some time spent on goals, so there is motivation to practice the new behavior, and lots of support and encouragement from the therapist to help with that. And many of Albert Ellis' concepts have been of enormous value to me--the basic unratability of human beings, the dysfunctionality of demandingness and the correlated value of accepting the fact that things are the way they are and now what can one do to make them better according to personal goals. I had also picked up--I think from Barlow, but probably also others--that PTSD (and related anxiety issues) essentially involves the attempt to avoid and escape from emotions (and eliciting thoughts and memories) which are perceived as dangerous to the individual--either literally to their life or experientially as leading to loss of self through craziness or loss of character (make me a bad person.) And, while I have long used Jacobsen's Progressive Relaxation as a therapeutic tool, I was very excited to discover Marsha Linehan's behavioral breakdown of mindfulness and to see the relationship to allowing emotions to occur under conditions which allow extinction to occur. I see EMDR as doing exactly that, and fitting the paradigm beautifully. So I am very interested in learning that you are working with many similar concepts in ACT, and can see that your ideas are apt to be quite fruitful in adding to my amalgam.