CIMBS Therapy in Kirkland, WA
What is CIMBS?
CIMBS stands for Complex Integration of Multiple Brain Systems. It is an innovative approach to psychotherapy developed by Beatriz Sheldon and Dr. Albert Sheldon, a husband and wife team of clinicians who spent decades studying neuroscience and watching what actually creates lasting change in therapy.
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The core idea is that we each have multiple brain systems operating beneath our awareness, systems that govern how we feel safe, how we connect with others, how we experience care, curiosity, and joy. When these systems are not fully developed or have become tangled together through early life experiences, we can find ourselves stuck in patterns that talk therapy alone does not always reach.
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CIMBS works differently. Rather than focusing on the story of what happened to you, it works with what is happening right now, in this moment, in your body and your nervous system. The goal is to help those brain systems become more differentiated, more fully themselves, so that you can access more of who you actually are.
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Think of it like an iceberg. What we are aware of, our symptoms, our struggles, our patterns, is only about ten percent. CIMBS gets at the other ninety.
How CIMBS Works and Who It Can Help
A Different Kind of Therapy
A CIMBS session begins with a brief meditation. We sit close together, about eighteen inches apart, close enough for genuine connection. I begin with a simple but powerful intention. We are here to pay close caring attention to you. We are here to help you feel safer inside. We are here to help you become more interested in and curious about yourself, without judgment from me and with a little less judgment from you toward yourself.
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There is less talking in CIMBS than in traditional therapy. I leave room for your story if you need to tell it, but the story is not the focus. The focus is what is happening right now, in this moment, in your body and your nervous system. A shift in your breathing. A sensation in your chest. A flicker of something that passes across your face. These small moments are doorways.
Who CIMBS Can Help
CIMBS is a powerful approach for anyone who is motivated to develop a deeper awareness of themselves. It is particularly helpful if you have already tried talk therapy, CBT, or other approaches and felt like something was still missing. Because CIMBS is attachment based and experiential it tends to reach places that purely cognitive approaches do not.
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It can help with anxiety, depression, shame, grief, ADHD, relationship difficulties, and a general sense of feeling stuck. But more than any specific diagnosis, CIMBS is for people who are ready to go beneath the surface and meet themselves more fully.
My History With CIMBS
I was already an established psychologist in private practice when I attended my first CIMBS training. I had appreciative clients and a full practice, but I carried a quiet feeling that there was a level of confidence in my work I had not yet found.
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What happened that first weekend of training I would not have predicted. I felt more hope for my work. I was energized by an approach that was attachment based, that helped clients develop a genuine sense of safeness, connection, caring, playfulness and curiosity. As I began using CIMBS with my clients I saw changes that moved both of us.
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I wanted to experience it for myself. I began my own therapy with Beatriz Sheldon, one of the co-founders of CIMBS, and it changed me. I began to feel more secure inside myself. Shame that had been quietly encroaching on my present experience of joy began to lift. I found I could give myself credit for who I am without the old familiar need to be different.
One session stays with me. Beatriz was focusing on my being delightful and I could not accept it. My resistance rose. She stayed with it, continuing to delight in me while we both acknowledged what was happening. And then something shifted. I felt my own delight. I opened to being delighted in, despite myself.
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Later that week I began noticing a delightfulness in my clients I had not explicitly seen before. My own expanded capacity had made room for theirs. That is what CIMBS does. It does not just help your clients. It helps you become more of who you are.
I am a certified CIMBS therapist and a teacher of CIMBS. This work is at the center of my practice.
Begin Your Own Journey
If you are curious about CIMBS and whether it might be right for you I invite you to reach out for a free 20-minute phone consultation. We do not need to have everything figured out before we talk. Just a willingness to be curious about yourself is enough to begin.