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Krystyna Kinowski M.A.,Ph.D.
Krystyna Kinowski Quick Facts
Main Areas: Positive psychotherapyBest Sellers: Put Your Best Foot Forward: Clinical Practice Manual 2nd.ed. 2003
Career Focus: Clinical Psychologist, Consultant, Speaker
Affiliation: College of Psychologists of BC, Canadian Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology, EMDRIA Certification in EMDR
Krystyna Kinowski is a registered psychologist with a practice in Victoria BC. Her approach with clients began shifting towards positive psychology in the late 1990’s when she developed a therapy protocol called Best Foot Forward. Its original purpose was to stabilize clients’ physical distress when they focused on traumatic events. But it accidentally seemed to help them grow beyond their immediate problems towards their potential as human beings. And it worked just as well for clients with problems such as depression and anxiety.
BFF finds inner resources using visual projections from a strong body position. These resources are not consciously remembered but they can pop up unexpectedly from free association. They bring with them joy and satisfaction which is usually felt as a lifting in the upper chest and an urge to smile. Krystyna found that these inner resources could be used to destabilize the problems that had gripped her clients for so long. The unexpected surprise was the absence of any logical connection between the resource and the problem! But at a body level, it worked. This therapeutic process opened up new ways to view oneself in the world and could trigger a dramatic shift towards unrealized potential.
Best Foot Forward is a structured therapeutic process in eight steps. Krystyna has formalized it into a 4-page protocol that therapists with training in EMDR can use. She has given numerous professional workshops on BFF but has also found that therapists who have never attended a workshop can successfully use the protocol just by ordering it online. On her website, see the reviews from some therapists who have done just this.
Other Programs & Highlights
To see the Table of Contents of the Best Foot Forward Clinical Practice Manual, go to Jim Lichti's on-line bookstore at http://emdrresources.com/oscommerce/product_info.php?cPath=21_87&products_id=145
Coming soon: Best Foot Forward Casebook co-authored with Susan Hubbard LCSW, EMDRIA Consultant in Boulder, Colorado.
Favorite Quotes & Thoughts from Krystyna Kinowski
"The theoretical position that has evolved from the results of Best Foot Forward is a conceptualization of therapy in the midbrain -- that collection of older brain structures including the hypothalmus, the cingulate, the thalamus, hippocampus, and, in long-term trauma, the amygdala. The majority of explanations for the outcomes of BFF involve the interrelationship of these areas. As a group, they retrieve, regulate, and reconstruct the foundation of our experiences, smoothing the path for higher level cortical procesing.
Midbrain therapy, as I see it, is a non-logical, preconceptual endeavour to recalibrate the capacity for fulness of experience. It is focused on positive affect and its physiological substrate, in a highly visual, right brain therapy that is insulated for a while from preconceived ideas. It uses associational information processing to net its catch and simultaneous information processing to correctly identify the fish. When applied to real life problems, midbrain therapy has dual goals of psychological containment and system homeostasis. In titrated exposures to the problem, both containment and homeostasis are disrupted just enough, and no more, to see if the body/brain can absorb the tremor. When the vibrations from repeated practice have settled, the brain has hopefully revised the activation code for the problem, which alters the probability of it happening all over again in exactly the same way. The client's system is still functioning within energy-efficient parameters but now has a new linkage for more differentiated behaviour. With very little input from the therapist, the client then seems able to make those connections that bring perspective to the problem. The fact that the raw ingredients of this therapy process can come from the client's own life is a little like icing on the cake. Clients come for therapy expecting a leg up with problems only to find that said leg is attached to their own best foot." (from the last page of the Clinical Practice Manual)
Getting Started With Krystyna Kinowski
Go to www.krystynakinowski.com and check the Best Foot Forward list on the left hand side of the home page. Here you can read more about it and, if you wish, download the protocol, manual, clinical record form, and/or body saftety rating card. Electronic downloads are quick and inexpensive, helped by a PayPal link.
Contacting Krystyna Kinowski
Krystyna Kinowski, M.A.,Ph.D.
Registered Psychologist
201-1005 Cook Street
Victoria, BC, Canada V8V 3Z6
250-380-0361
