ABOUT DR. BELL

Where did she go to college?

  • Oklahoma State University with a Doctor of Education in Applied Behavioral Studies/Counseling Psychology in 1983
  • Texas A&M Commerce with a Master of Science degree in Counseling in 1974

What licenses and certificates does she have?

  • Licensed as a Professional Counselor in Texas in 1986
  • Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Texas in 1996
  • Certified in Bioenergetic Analysis in Dallas in 1997
  • Certified in EEG Biofeedback through the Biofeedback Certification Institute of America in 1998
  • Licensed as a Professional Counselor and Licensed Clinical Counselor in New Mexico 2002

What is her background and experience?

My professional background for the past 28 years includes teaching at the graduate level, clinical therapist at psych hospitals, college counseling centers, educational/career, administrative and full time private practice. The places where I was employed includes: University of Tulsa, Oklahoma State University, Texas A&M-Commerce, East Central Oklahoma State University, University of North Texas, Twin Lakes Hospital, Bedford Meadows Hospital, and Parker College of Chiropractic.

A Personal Viewpoint...

My journey into psychotherapy started when I was in my early 20’s and is what brought me into the field of Counseling and Psychology. Bioenergetics is the only type of therapy that I have experienced that has been able to take me to the deepest levels of healing. After having experienced bioenergetic work I knew I could not continue to do only talk/behavioral types of therapy with my clients. Doing talk therapy was good from many points but it was only scratching the surface. Talking about the issues only engaged the head and partly the heart at times but never got to the body (soma) where the pain memories were stored. Engaging the body feeling in the therapy experience helped to feel the pain and relieve the pain at the level the pain was originally laid down. This was important from the standpoint of engaging the unconscious experience and bringing the experience into conscious awareness. Awareness can happen in talk therapy but not in a whole and total organismic gestalt. Awareness can also happen in a body feeling experience. But, without the important knowledge of the client history along with the body feeling consciousness and the safe, artful, therapeutic analysis the same body/emotional pains return unresolved. This is how Bioenergetic Analysis brings about the reintegration of the whole self. The safe, artful, therapeutic analysis takes a very experienced bioenergetic analyst. My evolution into a bioenergetic analyst took five years. It required many hours of my own work, training, and supervision. It was a wonderful evolution. I am still evolving…

Over time, I wanted to know more about why and how bioenergetics worked. That brought me to a study of the brain. I began to study neurological functioning and brain wave frequencies. I then got certified in a therapeutic method for resolving certain brain dysfunctions called EEG Biofeedback. A truly remarkable kind of therapy to help resolve learning disabilities, depression, anxiety, stroke , epilepsy, addictions, and is being studied for use with immune dysfunction and many other possibilities. What I have discovered is that people that have experienced significant trauma to the brain often have difficulty integrating the understanding, the conscious awareness, when the brain is too damaged or too stuck in an endless loop of inefficient neuronal firings. Doing EEG Biofeedback significantly speeds up the process of integration with the body analysis process (bioenergetic analysis). And at the same time relieves the brain chemistry problem that is sometimes expressed as depression or anxiety. Sometimes we see this in the oral collapse in bioenergetic analysis. When a person takes a psychotherapeutic medication to deal with the symptoms of depression or anxiety, the midbrain, the limbic system is numbed. When we do bioenergetic therapy we are engaging the limbic system and the lower parts of the brain. My experience is that someone cannot get deeply into the body consciousness when using medication. If a person cannot function without medication an alternative to clearing up the brain chemistry problem is EEG Biofeedback. Let me say here that I am not at all advocating clients stop using medication. Medication in many instances is life sustaining and necessary. However, we now have an alternative that used under the direction of appropriate medical advice can be effective...thanks for your interest in reading.

Any question can be directed to my email address: drpbell@qwest.net


Contact Info:
Dr. Pamela J. Bell, Ed D
Santa Fe, NM 87508
(505) 466-9800

 

 

 

© 2004-2005 Dr. Pam Bell

Designed by Jennifer Warriner