Helping Others in Sculpting a Life with Passion and Purpose
As Dr. Wrye tells it, “Let me introduce myself. I am a psychologist, wife, mom, cyclist, horsewoman, hiker, yogi, a mindfulness practitioner, world traveler, equine therapist and writer. In my eighth healthy decade of a very full, good life, I have a lot to offer you on the pathway to happiness, balance and self-fulfillment. In a nutshell, ‘Live Madly, Kindly and Truly’: that is, madly as in passionately, intensely, fully, and even wildly on occasion; kindly as in compassionately, tenderly, and generously; truly as in authentically, fully engaged and totally present – All these in order to sculpt your life with passion and purpose.”
Dr. Wrye continues, “I have learned the importance of ‘walking the talk’ exemplifying balance in life, living life to the fullest, and experiencing each present moment.” These are the life experiences and their lessons that Dr. Wrye offers her clients as she helps them find their own balance and meaning in a life to be lived to the fullest.
“In my experience,” shares Dr. Wrye, “Patients grow and benefit not only from the depth of the therapeutic encounter per se, but also from an intuitive sense of their therapist’s self actualization and example. Over the years I have moved from classical Freudian analytic practice to a more relational practice, working out of my home office where patients inevitably have a sense of who I am as a human being. In my office in Aptos, in the Santa Cruz Mountains, we sometimes begin sessions walking slowly and silently together up the 100 steps to the redwood meditation grove and hold our sessions there.”
So, if you are ready to reflect on and change where you are in your own life, relationships, purpose, or work, please join Dr. Wrye in her therapy practice; embark on your own inner journey with her among the ageless redwoods. She knows what it’s like to intentionally change direction or have it changed for you through life events such as loss, divorce and cancer.
In her 2012 book “PULLING UP STAKES: Stepping Into Freedom” (www.pullingupstakesbook.com), psychologist Dr. Harriet Wrye describes how she felt the call to “pull up stakes” in her life as she and her husband had done each day while backpacking in the high Sierras with their llamas. Inspired, she closed her Los Angeles psychoanalytic practice of thirty years, they leased their house at the beach and set out on an odyssey into the “back of beyond” through places like the Mideast, Indonesia, the Amazon, the Alps, Papua New Guinea, Borneo and many more. Creating a three year sabbatical away from the familiar, her journey became a life-changing spiritual pilgrimage that led to letting go of assumptions, habits and patterns, and stepping into freedom. Her sabbatical concluded with practice and lay ordination by Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn and inspired her “coming home” to Santa Cruz, where generations of her family had settled since the 1880s.
Dr. Wrye’s present pilgrimage continues here with her private therapy practice in Aptos, where she is a Consulting Psychologist, Relational Therapist, Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Therapist and Mindfulness Practitioner. In addition, she is a 2014 graduate of Leadership Santa Cruz; a member of 100+Women Who Care; Dining For Women; Co-Founder and President of a local non-profit, Bread for the Journey, which gives pollination grants to creative new projects to serve the underserved in our county. (www.santacruz/breadforthejourney.org); Monterey Bay Psychological Association; Santa Cruz County Horsemen’s Assoc.; Summit Riders; and Santa Cruz County Cycling Club.
She is a Past President, Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst Emerita at LAISPS (Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies); co-founded Div. 39 Section III West Coast chapter of Gender and Psychoanalysis, a Fellow of the International Psychoanalytic Association and Diplomate in Psychoanalysis.
Dr. Wrye brings to her consulting and teaching years of clinical experience, a co-authored clinical book: “The Narration of Desire: Erotic Transferences and Countertransferences” (Analytic Press), over twenty-five published articles on topics ranging from film and psychoanalysis, therapeutic technique, women and ambition, to mindfulness practice and psychotherapy. Dr. Wrye leads consultation groups for other therapists, teaches internationally, speaks at workshops and salons, and sees her own patients while integrating mindfulness and meditation into her psychodynamic psychotherapy practice
Harriet Wrye began her academic and professional journey at the Univ. of California, Berkeley earning a B.A. in English Literature and Studio Art. Next she graduated from Harvard University with a Masters in English Literature and Education. Dr. Wrye transitioned into Clinical Psychology earning her Ph.D. from Wright Institute, Los Angeles and her post doctorate at the Reiss Child Study Center.
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You can reach Dr. Wrye at her office: (831) 684-9993, by E-mail: harrietwrye@mac.com or visit her website at www.harrietwrye.com