Welcome to Decatur Mindfulness and Psychotherapy! We are a group psychotherapy practice in the city of Decatur, GA. We specialize in utilizing mindfulness to help people to get their lives unstuck and moving in the direction they want to go!
We utilize Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy and currently offer individual psychotherapy to adults and teens.
Rebecca Anne, M.Div., M.S.W., LCSW
Hi my name is Becky! I’m a psychotherapist and licensed clinical social worker but you might also call me a collaborator on getting unstuck!
I collaborate with people who experience themselves, their lives, their emotions, their thoughts, or their behaviors (or sometimes all of the above) as stuck and who need help and support learning to respond to their emotions, thoughts, life situations, and actions in ways that move them in the direction they’re wanting to go! Sometimes that stuckness looks like depression, sometimes it looks like anxiety, sometimes relationship struggles, sometimes parenting struggles!
I help clients to practice responding to their emotions with compassion, live life in the present moment, and increase awareness of the ways that the ways they respond to their thoughts and feelings. This frees them up to get unstuck and take action to decrease their own suffering and create a life that moves them toward meaning, purpose, and connection to their values. The technical name for this work is “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy” or ACT (Act!).
I know from my own experience of being a human with the full range of human emotions, a very busy mind that is sometimes not very helpful to me, and times in my life when I have been quite stuck and needed help getting unstuck that it is possible to practice and practice and practice some more – responding to ourselves and our sometimes unhelpful minds, unhelpful actions, and difficult emotions with compassion and with mindfulness in ways that decrease our suffering and help us to live into being the people that we want to be!
A phrase I’ve heard again and again in my ACT training is “the best way to be a good ACT therapist is to use ACT on yourself”! When I first discovered ACT I devoured an entire book in one weekend (granted it was called “ACT Made Simple” by Russ Harris) – both because I knew this therapy provided what I needed for myself to help me in the ways that I was stuck in my life – and because I saw how all suffering humans (that’s all of us!) could decrease their own suffering and thereby the suffering in our world.
An important practice in my own journey and one I’m almost certain to invite you to try if you meet with me is the practice of self-compassion which I learned from the above mentioned Russ Harris. Here’s a bit of what that looks like for me:
- I see myself and I see that I am in pain. I attend to myself. (As opposed to pretending like it’s not there, running away from it, or finding some way of shoving it down).
- I notice all of the things my mind might be telling me about my pain – just for what they are – thoughts or stories that my mind is telling me – and most of the time not particularly helpful stories. (Things like – you should not be feeling this – what’s wrong with you that you feel this – you don’t have time to let yourself feel this, and on, and on, and on…)
- I notice and name what feelings are showing up. And when I can find the willingness, I practice making space for those feelings. This sometimes sounds like, saying to myself, “Shame is here right now. I’m willing to drop the struggle with it and just let it be here right now.” This one is HARD!
- I take the action of validating myself. I might say to myself, “It makes perfect sense that you’re feeling this way. What’s happening right now is hard.”
- I find some way of taking kind action toward myself. This might mean gently placing my hand on my heart and offering myself warmth. This might mean sitting for 5 minutes and just drinking a cup of tea or saying a lovingkindness mantra for myself.
- I practice connecting with all the other humans that are suffering (that’s all of us!). This might mean I bring to mind another person who I know is suffering – or it might mean I actually reach out to someone who loves me to share that I’m struggling.
This practice allows me and might allow you to be present to yourself and to your suffering in ways that bring about freedom instead of “stuckness”.
I believe that connecting with our own values and working compassionately and effectively with our own thoughts and emotions will change our experience of being human and as such can change our lives, our relationships, our behaviors, and our world! That’s why I hope you call or email us today!
A few important details:
I work only with adults 18 and older.
I am “intensively trained” by BTECH in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and often use DBT Skills Training to help clients who might need skills in emotion regulation, tolerating distress, interpersonal effectiveness, and mindfulness. Often times, learning and practicing DBT Skills is an important part of “getting unstuck”.
I hold a Master of Divinity (MDiv) Degree from Emory University in addition to my Master of Social Work (MSW) degree. I really enjoy working with people who are interested in incorporating their spirituality/faith/religion into their work on getting unstuck and thriving! That said, I would not consider myself a “Christian Counselor” or even a “Pastoral Counselor”.
My office hours are Mon-Thu 9:00am-2:30pm (last appointment at 1:30pm).
I offer self-pay psychotherapy and I am currently in network with Medicare, Humana, and Aetna.
Meet Mark Navarre-Jones, LCSW
I’m a psychotherapist, counselor, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker. You might also think of me as a person to support you on your journey or help you grow into the person you want to be.
I support people who wish to grow or change some aspect of their life, but often aren’t certain where to start or what the best approaches may be. For some people, they may be experiencing anxiety, depression, or simply a sense that something is “off” or not as good as it should be. Oftentimes I work with people who have experienced a particular concern or incident that initiates therapy, but through the process of working together, I am frequently privileged to see growth and change in all dimensions of a person’s life.
I offer self-pay psychotherapy and I am currently in-network with Humana and Aetna.