ABOUT RACHEL

Rachel McDavid, LMFT

Rachel McDavid is a Marriage and Family Therapist specializing in individual, couples and family therapy as well as anger management and anxiety treatment.

Since 2002, Rachel has been learning, teaching and working with people using Nonviolent Communication (NVC) or Compassionate Communication as it is sometimes called, a modality founded by Marshall Rosenberg, which focuses on understanding feelings and needs through connecting with what is most alive in ourselves and others.

Rachel has had extensive training in Nonviolent Communication.  She participated in a number of workshops with Marshall Rosenberg and is a graduate of the 2006 BayNVC Leadership Program and was an assistant trainer at the program in 2007.   Along with individual and relational counseling, Rachel leads anger management groups and workshops in which she teaches NVC skills to support people in learning how to manage their anger more effectively.

In using NVC with her clients, Rachel offers tools, which can allow clients to resolve issues on their own.

Rachel has also studied Somatic Experiencing (SE) based on the work of Peter Levine. SE focuses on healing trauma through body awareness. Her interest in this topic is both to have greater understanding and tools for working with people who experience trauma and to incorporate a more holistic approach to healing by having more awareness of the body’s process as we experience pain and change.

Rachel has completed Levels 1-3 of the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, developed by Richard Schwartz.  IFS is based on the idea that our internal world is made up of many different “parts” of ourselves and by becoming more familiar with our internal system we can learn to navigate and heal parts of us which are holding beliefs and pain that are getting in the way of our living a more satisfying and enriching life.

In her theoretical approach, Rachel incorporates NVC, empathy, somatic work, and IFS to her training in family systems and solution-focused therapies. With an emphasis on being a collaborator in the client’s process, she supports clients on their journey toward feeling more self connected, empowered and understood.

Rachel works with clients in identifying and changing the stories that are no longer serving them; by supporting them in shifting from areas in which they feel stuck to having a greater sense of freedom and choice.