Website of TairaStJohn.com . Counseling, Coaching and Creative Services

"Thank you for visiting my web page! I would like to get to know you, introduce you to my counseling philosophy and film, media and stage projects, and be your partner in connecting with your own creative muse. Whether you are interested in individual, couple's or family therapy...or in expanding your own creative capacity, we can work together toward your therapeutic life goals.

"We specialize in treating male and female combat veterans, law enforcement, firemen, school personnel and students, government agencies and corporate employees for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), including readjustment, career and job issues, depression, anxiety, family stress, and addiction for adult individual, family, couples, adolescent and group therapy."

Taira St. John, Ph.D.,M.F.T.

As a depth psychotherapist, life coach, radio host and writer-producer of radio, film and video projects, I combine a private family counseling and mediation practice in Lakeport, CA with my background in communications and entertainment. As a Ph.D. and California-licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (CA MFT 33695), Family and Civil Court Mediator in the California Superior Court, and Director of Alternatives to Violence (ATV), I have integrated two decades of mental health and court experience related to marriage, divorce, reconciliation and child custody and visitation mediation with my general mental health clientele, all based on the creative process.

Whether viewed from a neurological or depth therapy perspective, human behavior is largely produced through observation, mimicry, habit or current focus. For better or for worse, outer behaviors affect the inner, just as inner thinking and feeling affect the outer. Therefore, you can start almost anywhere in the cycle of daily experience to change your simplest habits in order to improve feeling and sense perceptions that positively impact your living conditions.

The consideration of possible and imaginal outcomes can provide rich veins of insight to an otherwise sense of confusion or imbalance. Sometimes, poignant human stories and images in theatrical drama, comedy and historical or mythological tales can serve as allegories for the real-life human experiences relived in the counseling room. These true stories and creative perspectives also serve to fulfill my clients' development of imaginal thinking in resolving their own daily relationships and the daily creation of their lives.

Coming from my perspective as a depth therapist, analyzing your dreams can be your most reliable teacher. Now that I have learned the value of integrating dream notes and journaling from one of my own teachers, Stephen Aizenstat, Ph.D., from his book on Dream Tending, it would be difficult to imagine counseling in my office without at least touching upon these inner guides. Please listen to Dr. Aizenstat's radio interview streamed on this website. Go to the Radio button, then to the first interview in the "DNA of Carl Jung" series, where you will also find many other interviews about the psychoanalytic understandings and techniques of Carl Jung.

Utilizing a unique combination of Jungian depth therapy, family systems and brief, solution-focused techniques, we can address together the core of your concerns in a timely, emotionally- and economically-sensitive manner, toward the goal of resolving or integrating them into your life to increase your self--confidence, fulfill your needs and help you cope effectively with obstacles and frustrations.

My counseling practice and media projects are dedicated to helping people understand themselves and others, to increase joy and fulfillment in life, and to reduce obstacles, including anger, violence, and negative projections. In my view, life is intended to be happy and productive, a continuous creative process. Founded on a simple philosophical rule of taking responsibility for everything that happens in our lives, including words, actions and attitudes, we can reduce errors in thinking or behavior that may unwittingly create long, painful or inconvenient detours to the fulfilllment of our dreams. Through the simple practice of forgiveness and compassion for self and others and eliminating blame, we can positively affect and free ourselves from stress and facilitate greater personal growth.

In addition to specific interventions for more serious mental health conditions, making the commitment to change restrictive personal habits and thinking can help eliminate or reduce critical mental and physical symptoms, including clinical depression, anxiety and panic, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and other stress reactions, and even psychotic episodes. Everyday, but no less devastating family or other relational obstacles, including couples or family communications issues, job stress, parenting, and child development issues can be positively-impacted through therapeutic counseling. Impulse control and other addictive behaviors, including anger, violence and even grief and loss are more adequately coped with through the development and practice of healthy daily thinking and behavioral habits.

Responsible commitment to ones own well being through regular spiritual reading and meditation (following your own inner mandates), healthy living practices, moderate exercise, adequate physical rest and intelligent eating and spending habits, can provide basic steps toward creating the life you want, with workable solutions to personal and relational challenges.

Although it is sometimes gratifying to work with long-term clients committed to deep understandings, endless, drawn-out therapy except under unusual circumstances, is not a necessary prescription for personal change. As both a pragmatist and student of the unconscious, I encourage my clients to take on life and use it as a learning tool, discovering what their overarching issues are to resolve in the present moment...in this phase of their existence. Not all problems have to be solved at once.

Through practicing what you learn from everyday experience, depth counseling and personal encounters in your relationships, you can take time and allow your ideas to develop and become engrained by testing them out in everyday life, finding out what really works for you in a meaningful way. When people take energetic control of their own psyches, they can reliably take time out from therapy, and return for counseling as needed to take the next step in developing even more fulfilling personal and professional solutions.

The most disastrous situations are likely to teach us the highest lessons, and may be be met with intelligent options that lead to positive resolutions. While good times teach us important lessons about our value. about feeling, intimacy and the joy of sharing experiences, we learn our most critical lessons when we least expect them, many times when situations are taken completely out of our control. In fact, it may take an unfortunate incident or series of events to teach us what we may unconsciously seek to learn.

To meet needs on various levels, I also conduct Certified Online Therapy in California, where I am licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT), and Certified Life Coaching throughout the U.S. or beyond by telephone, email, or otherwise online, through MyTherapyNet.com, or Skype. Life coaching deals more with the present and future than the past. Setting and fulfilling personal and career goals can be as therapeutic and satisfyng as counseling.

I look forward to getting to know you, and planning with you a path for your personal change!

Taira St. John, Ph.D.,M.F.T. (CA Lic. MFC 33695)

Call 707-262-0400 or email me at stjohnt@mchsi.com. Or you may go to Contact Us page on this website for questions or an appointment.  On all calls and correspondence, please leave your telephone number and email address with your inquiry or other message, and let me know when you can most easily be reached.