WorldLegacy Therapy as Mind Yoga

Ownership and Empowerment

As a licensed clinical social worker, I provide counseling to adolescents, adults, families, and couples. My work is focused on meeting an individual wherever he or she may be in life and assisting them through periods of change and growth in respect to his or her life experiences.  I believe in a collaborative approach to healing. My relationally focused psychodynamic style supports the idea that healing occurs through our connection with others. By providing a safe and solid therapeutic relationship to a person, that person begins to experience a greater range of perspective regarding their own life and the lives around them.

I believe that increased self-awareness enables individuals to recognize that they have more choices in their lives. Self-awareness also allows a person to gain ownership and empowerment in making these choices. As a result, a person can discover a new freedom in which to live life. I sometimes refer to therapy as mind yoga; the ability to have increased flexibility in how to think, perceive, and interpret the meaning of the events that take place in our lives. I believe our minds need exercise just like the body in order to stay fit and healthy.

Wikipedia defines psychotherapy as an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a client or patient in problems of living. As a practitioner, I accept that problems, struggles, and even trauma are intrinsically connected to living. Because I see struggle as a given, I appreciate that problems provide opportunities to delve more deeply into who we are as human beings and find constructive meaning in our past and present day lives. In turn, we can gain greater power in writing the script for our future.

I participated in the WorldLegacy Trainings beginning in January of 2000.  I had recently finished my graduate  school program and was working at my first clinical social work job.  My supervisor, Miki Jaeger, recommended I take part in this “workshop” which I readily enrolled.  All I really knew at the time was that I was embarking on some kind of leadership program. Four months later, I could not easily articulate the profound impact the experience of these trainings had on my life, both personally and professionally.  I noticed that I had gained a sense of self-esteem that gave me courage to believe more fully in myself and my capacity to make a difference in the world.  I started my private practice a year later at the age of 27 years old.  I also noticed an enhanced ability to connect and create relationship with others.  This made a noticeable difference in my personal life with family and friends as well as a much more meaningful connection with the many people I would treat as a psychotherapist.  One of the greatest gifts I received from volunteering as a coach and now working as a facilitator is going beyond creating tangible positive change in my own life, but being a person that supports and inspires others to do so as well.   Over ten years later, I am still practicing and grateful for the context of leadership in my life and the many possibilities it creates.

BIO
Ellen Pizer, LCSW
Ellen received her BA in French from Washington University in St. Louis and Master’s degree in Clinical Social Work from Smith College.  She has been in private practice since November of 2001.  Ellen completed WorldLegacy’s NC30 Leadership Program in May of 2000.  She has worked as a consultant, co-facilitating experiential leadership trainings for teenagers and their parents for the WorldLegacy Foundation since 2003 (Teen Leadership).