Mary Disharoon, MA, LMFT

Voice Dialogue California

222 Weller Street, #4
Petaluma, California
94952
U.S.A.

707-525-4789

MaryDish@gmail.com
www.VoiceDialogueCalifornia.com
www.MaryDisharoon.com

I experienced my first Voice Dialogue session in October of 1994, when Sidra Stone facilitated the voice of my Inner Child, and activated my aware ego process. This was a watershed moment for me. I went on to study with Hal and Sidra Stone, and learn all that I could about Voice Dialogue and the Psychology of Selves. I also went back to school and acquired my Master's degree in Counseling Psychology in 1997 and my California Marriage and Family Therapy license in 2001. Voice Dialogue was, and continues to be 16 years later, a perfect fit for me, and I derive great joy in sharing it with my clients. By using Voice Dialogue, I facilitate the different voices of the inner selves so an aware ego process can be developed. This method can be used with most any topic brought up in therapy and I especially like how it develops self-awareness, self-esteem and self-empowerment. It's easy to learn and very effective in creating change.

Languages Spoken: English

Detailed information

About This Practice

Practicing Since 1995
Teaching Since 1998

Offering Continuing Education Credits

Additional Modalities: I use a variety of other methods besides Voice Dialogue, depending on the presenting issue and my client's wishes.

Conversational Talk-Therapy: I am conversational and interactive. I ask relevant questions and I encourage my clients to speak about what they know, what they feel, what they think and what they want. I listen well, question, and contribute to our conversation by drawing upon my own knowledge and experience as we work together to create change.

Cognitive Therapy: How you think about yourself, someone else, or something you are dealing with can strongly influence your experience. Negativity, self-sabotage, self-criticism, worrying, blaming and low self-esteem are particular ways of thinking that will keep you stuck. By recognizing some of your automatic thoughts, assumptions and core beliefs, you can positively change your life.

Behavior Therapy: Doing something differently can change established patterns and habits. Practicing a new behavior - by speaking up directly for what you want, getting started on a project, quieting down your anxiety with a relaxation exercise, taking a walk when you're angry - can jump start your process of change.

Handouts: Understanding something in a new way can help change it. I have a diverse collection of educational handouts that I choose from and offer to my clients whenever it seems helpful.

Dreams: Dreams can bring awareness and wisdom to the process of change. If there is interest, I help my clients learn ways to remember their dreams so together, with the help of Voice Dialogue, we can decipher their meaning.

Sand Play: I have a collection of miniature figures in my office so my clients can use symbols to reveal primary and disowned selves and their dynamic relationship with each other and an aware ego process. It's easy do and can be extremely helpful and revealing.

Areas of Interest: I work with individual adult clients and couples, and most life and relationship issues that affect men and women in their 20's through 60's. I find that Voice Dialogue works particularly well with -- personal growth, relationship conflicts, building self-esteem, difficult decision making, adjusting to a life-changing event, creating personal boundaries, taming the inner critic, developing conscious eating, and opening to a slower paced, more pleasurable existence.

Degree
Title/Field	School	Date
MA	University of San Francisco	1997

License
Title	State	Date
LMFT	California	2001

Professional Background
In 1994, I began my training in Voice Dialogue with the creators, Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone. In 1998, I became part of their senior staff, facilitating and teaching at their Voice Dialogue intensives in Albion, California. The full measure of this training and experience is listed in the boxes below. I received my Master's degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of San Francisco in 1997, and, after acquiring 3000 practice hours and passing a written and oral exam, I received my California Marriage and Family Therapy license to practice psychotherapy in 2001. In addition to my formal education and the learning that has come from working with my clients over the past 15 years, I draw upon my experience as a conscious partner in a 37 year marriage and as a mother of three grown children. I have also learned invaluable lessons about living and loving through my own journey of healing and growth. I am personally familiar with the rewards of using therapy as a resource to help an individual and couple find their way through difficult times. I also have come to deeply appreciate how therapy can be a safe and creative place for someone to meet and embrace the inner selves that live in their unconscious, and by making them conscious, experience a new sense of wholeness. As a licensed therapist in California, I am required to complete 36 hours of continuing education every two years, and I choose courses that are interesting and relevant to the client issues I work with. And possibly most importantly, I get facilitated every couple of weeks, so that I am working with my own inner selves, hearing from the more primary selves and what they have to say, separating from them, opening to the selves that are more disowned in me, and allowing myself to develop an ever-evolving aware ego process. In 2008, I wrote "Conscious Eating with an Aware Ego Process", which describes why diets don't work and goes on to define a ten-step experiential process that will let you grow beyond the up and down cycle of dieting and over-eating.

Professional Background

In 1994, I began my training in Voice Dialogue with the creators, Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone. In 1998, I became part of their senior staff, facilitating and teaching at their Voice Dialogue intensives in Albion, California. The full measure of this training and experience is listed in the boxes below.

I received my Master's degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of San Francisco in 1997, and, after acquiring 3000 practice hours and passing a written and oral exam, I received my California Marriage and Family Therapy license to practice psychotherapy in 2001.

In addition to my formal education and the learning that has come from working with my clients over the past 15 years, I draw upon my experience as a conscious partner in a 37 year marriage and as a mother of three grown children.

I have also learned invaluable lessons about living and loving through my own journey of healing and growth. I am personally familiar with the rewards of using therapy as a resource to help an individual and couple find their way through difficult times. I also have come to deeply appreciate how therapy can be a safe and creative place for someone to meet and embrace the inner selves that live in their unconscious, and by making them conscious, experience a new sense of wholeness.

As a licensed therapist in California, I am required to complete 36 hours of continuing education every two years, and I choose courses that are interesting and relevant to the client issues I work with.

And possibly most importantly, I get facilitated every couple of weeks, so that I am working with my own inner selves, hearing from the more primary selves and what they have to say, separating from them, opening to the selves that are more disowned in me, and allowing myself to develop an ever-evolving aware ego process.

In 2008, I wrote "Conscious Eating with an Aware Ego Process", which describes why diets don't work and goes on to define a ten-step experiential process that will let you grow beyond the up and down cycle of dieting and over-eating.

Basic Voice Dialogue Training(s)
Title	Where	When	Hours / Days	Teacher(s)
Level I, Level II, and Level III - 5-day Delos Intensives	Albion, California	1994 - 2003	Student at 6 Delos Intensives, 216 hours	Hal and Sidra Stone and staff

Continuing Voice Dialogue Education^*
Title	Where	When	Hours / Days	Teacher(s)
Level II and Level III - 5-day Delos Intensives	Albion, Californa	1998 - 2010	Senior Staff at 8 Delos Intensives, 288 hours	Hal and Sidra Stone and fellow staff

* The most recent workshops.