I am a Psychologist and Neuroscientist whose lifelong work integrates the core insights of how trauma, on one side, and practices of emotional growth and self-development on the other, can affect the functioning of our brain and body. I have been working as a Clinical Psychologist for 7 years, in Brazil and, since last year, also in Europe. My specializations are: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy®, Somatic experiencing®, Psychosomatics, and Pathwork for Self-Transformation®. In my academic career, which walked alongside with clinical practice, I studied the effects of stress and of developmental trauma on the brain and the body, the association with diseases later in life, and how to brake this connection. During my Postdoctorate, in France, I was also a Professor of Neurosciences and Psychology at the University of Bordeaux and the University of Toulouse. My areas of specialty are Anxiety disorders; Depression; Insomnia; Panic attacks; Hypervigilance; Developmental trauma; Traumatic experiences; Obsessive-compulsive disorder; Eating disorders; Workplace stress/burnout; Chronic pain; Low physical energy; Lack of purpose in life; Self-development. I am currently based in Portugal and I have licences in Brazil and Europe-wide (CRP, OPP and EUROPSY).
In my perspective, the brain and the body co-participate in the restoration of health. Therefore, I use top-down (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, ACT® and Pathwork®) and bottom-up (Psychosomatics and Somatic Experiencing, SE®) approaches to orient you, in a constructive and gentle way, to deal with your blocked feelings, dysfunctional beliefs, negative emotions, destructive attitudes, procrastination, and trauma. ACT® offers tools to help you to feel your pain and to recognize the strategies you have built to run away from it, what brings self-awareness and a more present way of living. SE® is designed to overcome the negative effects of trauma by reconnecting you with our body, feelings, and emotions. Pathwork® is a path for personal transformation where personal psychological work is a first step, and the second step is spiritual awakening. These approaches are used accordingly for each patient’s demand. This journey can gradually lead you to constructively question your distorted beliefs and it guides you to feel “all” your feelings, including emotional pain, instead of using the mechanisms created to run away from it (and that end up causing more pain). Little by little, and organically, this leads to integration of your parts that were being “ignored” and suppressed, and you can start functioning from the core of your being, to connect to your inner wisdom and to access your highest potential.
What makes my heart the happiest is to observe in myself, and to observe in my patients, that we are capable to transform our external environment as a consequence of the transformation of our internal environment. By gradually transforming suffering into happiness/love/joy/abundance we can receive all that life has to offer to us. I give, through my profession the best of me, and I receive from it, the best of life. Outside my work I spend most time in nature, sports, travelling, and with my loved ones.
I am an English-speaking Psychologist in Lisbon specialised in psychological therapies for teenagers, adults and older adults.
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