Helping you ... Helping yourself

About Lynne Foote

I am a licensed professional counselor who has been in private practice
in Boulder since 1984. I work with an extensive age range, from college students to elders, on a vast array of issues. My areas of expertise are: Relationship and Intimacy Issues; Pre-marital Counseling; Sex Therapy; Divorce Recovery; Life and Career Transitions; Working through Grief and Loss; Midlife and Aging Issues; Recovery from past Trauma and Abuse; Unblocking the Creative Process; and Finding Life's Meaning.


A Personal Side


I feel like I came into this world asking questions and loving beauty. I am one who has always wondered what it's all about.
My life path is a reflection of this longing. I was an English major with an unofficial Philosophy minor during my undergraduate years. Here I was exposed to writings by the masters and ideas that challenged my naïve but open mind. The years were the late 60s and we were in our own cultural revolution. I discovered Carl Jung's work in 1974 through the writings of Marie Louise von Franz's work on fairytales. These and other books by Jungian analysts were to be my core reading for the next
twenty years. When I moved to Boulder in 1978 the spiritual doors opened for me. I was introduced to Buddhist philosophy and began a meditation practice in the strict Zen tradition under the guidance of the Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn. I also entered two years of Jungian analysis.

In the summer of 1981 I went to an island off the coast of Maine for a
twenty-one day workshop in Sensory Awareness with Charlotte Selver who was a youthful 80 at the time. (She lived to be 102 and worked until the very end of her life). Charlotte was a teacher for many of the great teachers of the late 20th century including Fritz Perls, Alan Watts, Eric Fromm, and Ruth Dennison. She co-taught classes with the Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki. Charlotte's work was electrifying for me and life changing. She showed me the importance of the mind-body connection, how to be awake and more alive in my body.  One night under the full moon, at the end of the three weeks, I decided to make a pivotal life and career change. I decided that night to return to Boulder and enroll in the Boulder School of Massage Therapy to gain knowledge and hands-on experience of working with the body, and also to find a body-centered psychotherapy. I did just that.

During my massage training I was fortunate enough to discover Hakomi Therapy, the work of Ron Kurtz. Even after over 25 years of working with clients, I still find these techniques to be the best way to get to what is driving the deepest parts of the personality, the core belief system. This
intra-psychic form of treatment is done in a state of mindfulness, a quiet inner awareness, where the client and I can go under the radar of the personality's automatic defense strategies straight to what is sourcing those defenses. This is change at a transformational level. At this point I began my deepest inner work by working with two therapists over the course of four years. I did almost Shamanic level work with one therapist who is a Hakomi trainer, and I worked on relationship and intimacy issues with the other who is a heart-full psychologist. During the course of this therapy it became clear that I needed to go back to graduate school for a traditional training to give me a more solid foundation for the depth work that I was doing with my clients.

I got a Masters degree from the University of Northern Colorado
with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy in 1991. I knew at this point that the main focus of my work would be working with all aspects of marriage and relationship issues. I got my Licensed Professional Counselor license (LPC)in 1994. In 1998, I did Levels 1 and 2 training in EMDR, (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), and in the fall of 2009, I completed Level 1 and 2 training in BRAINSPOTTING. Both are effective therapies for trauma. I completed the Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) externship in the fall of 2010 and will do the Core Skills training over the course of this next year. Research has shown that this model of couples' therapy has one of the highest success rates.

In the late 90s I also began studying the Enneagram, a psycho-spiritual model of nine personality types based on temperament. By 2003 I was smitten with the wisdom in this model and trained with Don Riso and Russ Hudson over the course of the next two years. In 2007 I became certified as one of their teachers. Whereas I still believe that Hakomi is one of the best ways to get to the core material, I am convinced that the Enneagram is the best map for understanding this material.  Personally, no other model has shown me as clearly who I am on the inside, and by having these insights, we can make more conscious and deliberate choices to grow and change. It is still not an easy task because the patterns of our personality run deep, but the way towards a healthier life becomes more clear, and with that insight, more possible.

I am currently training in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT), the work of Sue Johnson out of Ottawa, Canada. This model uses the lens of adult attachment, which is the bond at the core of a partnership, to assess the nature and degree of relational distress. Johnson's model is backed by empirical research which shows that this technique is highly effective in bringing couples who are on the brink of divorce back from that edge, and creating new modes of interaction that enhance their capacity to have healthier, more satisfying connections. I am presently in the Core Skills training that runs through June of 2011.

On a personal note, outside the realm of being a therapist, I am an artist. Click on LYNNE FOOTE STUDIO to see my work. I paint in abstract acrylics, work with mixed media and book arts, and have a line of greeting cards of my photographs. I am also passionate about my gardens and often can be found under my straw hat with mud on my hands. And I love film. I have spent the past several winters in my own private film festivals immersing myself in the body of work of such masters as Bergman, Kurosawa, and Hitchcock.  And dare I say that I am an avid fan of Harry Potter!

For further information on: Sensory Awareness, Hakomi Therapy, the Enneagram, EFT (Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy), EMDR, or Brainspotting, click on MODALITIES.

The More Formal Side

Education:

Professional Experience:

Workshop and Group Facilitator:

Professional Affiliations:

Major Influences:

NEXT STEP

For information on who I work with, click on IS THIS FOR YOU? To learn more about my working style, click on HOW I WORK and MY SERVICES. Or for a free half hour consultation to see if individual or couples counseling can help you, click CONTACT ME, or call my voicemail at 303•447•2987.


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