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Fall 2007  
In This Issue:

Gudrun Zomerland's article on "Attachment in Adult Relationships" shows how useful it is to know our attachment styles in understanding our relationships.

Shonnie Brown's "Adult Daughters and Their Mothers" includes client examples of adult daughters with enmeshed, narcissistic and abandoning mothers

Milton Woolley shares a personal experience about his adult son embarking on his Heroes' Journey and talks about the parent experience of letting go.

Shoshona Pascoe's article on "Communication" describes how deeply self-expression and listening affects relationships, using the Nonviolent Communication model as a helpful tool.

Stay tuned for Kevin Cooper's article about the "Power of Forgiveness", coming up in our Winter newsletter.

Who We Are:

We are individual private therapists who practice psychotherapy in the same location: 405 Chinn Street in Santa Rosa. We are not part of a business partnership, group or association, but are sole practitioners. As individual therapists each of us offers years of experience in different areas of therapeutic focus. The array of services offered range from brief solution focused counseling to in-depth psychotherapy. While each one of us cooperates with different existing insurance and managed care companies, we each follow a "fee for service" orientation that allows clients the freedom to choose the therapist with whom they feel most comfortable.

For more information, visit www.chinnstreetcounseling.com

Chinn Street Newsletter Archives


Attachment in Adult Relationships
Gudrun Zomerland, MFT

Couples counseling is continuously evolving. At the forefront of recent developments is attachment theory, originally a study of how children bond with their primary caregivers. This theory, as applied to adults, basically states that the way we learned to bond with those who raised us, leads us to partners with whom we can create a similar pattern of attachment. This pattern then gets acted out in our committed, on-going relationships. Read more...


Adult Daughters and Their Mothers: A Tenuous Bond
Shonnie Brown, MFT

For many adult daughters, the mother-daughter bond is a tenuous balance of both positive and negative feelings, connection and autonomy. And for some, the bond is greatly affected by conflicting individual needs. After a particularly tumultuous weekend with my own 92 year-old mother, I began thinking of the many stories I have heard from my clients of their struggles for both love and autonomy with their mothers. These stories fall primarily into three groups: abandoning mothers, narcissistic mothers and symbiotic mothers. Read more...


A Story about a Heroes' Journey
Milton Woolley, MFT

I am a father and a month ago I received a phone call from my 37 year old son that went something like this: "Hi dad! I want to talk to you and what I am about to say may not please you... I have decided to quit my job; sell my house and all of my belongings. I am going to invest some of the house profit and I am going to take the rest and travel until I run out of money or decide to stop. I may end up living somewhere else all together." Long silence on my end... then I had an overwhelming feeling of joy. My son had come to the threshold of his "Heroes' Journey." Read more...


COMMUNICATION: Touching Every Relationship, Weaving our Relational Lives
Shoshona Pascoe, MFT

Whether extroverted and loving the social world or more introverted and blossoming in solitude and quiet, the need to communicate permeates our lives beginning with our first breath. The baby's cry is clear and simple: "Food please, are you there? Something doesn't feel good, or it does!" As we live, communication's complexity is revealed. Verbal and non-verbal statements, logical linear thinking or intuitive gestures, we are constantly saying something to those around us. The need to be better understood, or to understand another, is often what motivates a person to seek therapy. Read more...


Chinn Street Groups:

Separation/Divorce/Transition Group for Women: ongoing weekly support group for women in any stage of separation from a long term relationship. Facilitated by Shonnie Brown, M.A., MFT

Co-Parent Empowerment Group: six week class focusing on shared parenting issues: managing and diffusing anger, de-escalation of conflict and effective communication skills. Facilitated by Shonnie Brown, M.A., MFT

Ongoing Men's Support Group: open to men interested in working on recurrent relationship issues including anger, addiction, communication and parenting. Meets Tuesdays from 6-7:30 PM. Facilitated by Kevin Cooper, MFT

Recovery Support Group for Women: for women who are currently active members of a 12-Step fellowship and who want additional support in dealing with the many issues that can emerge when recovering from addictive patterns in life. Ongoing, Monday evenings 6-7:30PM. Facilitated by Gudrun Zomerland, MFT

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Chinn Street Counseling Center  •  405 Chinn Street  •  Santa Rosa, CA 95404
Barbara Bowen, L.C.S.W.
707-575-5300 / 925-934-8661


Shonnie Brown, M.A., M.F.T.
707-526-4353


Kevin Cooper, M.F.T.
707-566-7742

 
Shoshona Pascoe, M.F.T.
707-573-9575


Milton Woolley, M.F.T.
707-481-4343


Gudrun Zomerland, M.F.T.
707-575-8468 / 415-446-5532

 
 
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