Welcome!
Psychologist Suzanne R. Engelman Laguna Niguel,Orange CA

Dr. Suzanne Engelman
California Licensed Psychologist PSY7977
Board Certified in Biofeedback
Certified Thanatologist
Certified Animal Assisted Therapist

LOCATION:
30100 Crown Valley Parkway
Suite # 17C
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677

Office Phone:  (949) 460-4908 
FAX:  (949) 248-0421
Confidential email: srephd@hushmail.com

Suzanne R. Engelman, Ph.D., is a Psychologist offering individual adult therapy for stress management, coping with medical illness, health related challenges, death and dying, grief and bereavement, anxiety, depression, bio-feedback, pain-management, animal assisted therapy, individual and couple's therapy.


Psychologist Suzanne R. Engelman, Ph.D., located in Laguna Niguel, California, provides psychotherapy services for individuals, couples and families. With a Jungian and MINDFULNESS-based orientation, I incorporate mind/body specialties, and animal assisted therapy.

I offer opportunities to use biofeedback, stress management skill training, visualization/dream work and diaphragmatic breathing. This may help you manage your life concerns and move forward with greater meaning and integration, and reduced anxiety and depression. Increase your resilience, decrease stress, reduce your emotional and physical discomfort and pain, and move into the present feeling more balance between your mind, body and spirit.

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR HELP WITH…

  • Anxiety or panic attacks

  • Depression

  • The emotional and spiritual aspects of medical problems such as cancer, high blood pressure, recurrent abdominal pain, irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, bodily tension, Tension Myostitis Syndrome (TMS), fibromyalgia, and CRPS.

  • Stress—both home and work related

  • Grief, loss, bereavement

  • Life-threatening illness

  • Life transitions-birth, growing old, dying; End of life bed-side assistance

  • Cultivating greater meaning in life

  • Relationship, dating and intimacy issues

  • Dream analysis

  • Unresolved issues from your childhood

  • Life-style changes to cope with illness

I offer a safe, inviting and respectful space for individuals, couples and families to explore their current issues and problems. I consider you the expert about your life and I am a consultant in helping you explore meanings, behaviors, and obtain answers to your questions.

When you or a loved one are experiencing the stress of life--be it work or home; or the stress of your own medical problems or those of a loved one who may be approaching the end of life, it can be helpful to work with someone like myself.
I have advanced training in stress management tools; bio-feedback; pain management strategies; and death, dying and bereavement in addition to mind/body strategies including diaphragmatic breathing. Care-giver stress and relationship stress can also be addressed in our work.  I conduct my sessions with the assistance of my very cute Pet Partners trained therapy dogs, Lizzy, a small white bischon, and CJ, a standard poodle.

I am a member of the medical staff's of St Joseph Hospital in Orange, and Mission Hospital and Mission Laguna Hospital in South Orange County. I offer most of my services via telehealth.

New patients should start with my For Patients page on this website.


Articles by Suzanne R. Engelman, Ph.D, BCB, FT

(Please note: due to transfer of some articles from pdf to OCR format, discrepancies may appear in texts or graphs reproduced below)

 Spirituality in the End of Life: Other States of Consciousness
Other States of Consciousness --End of Life Dreams, Death Bed Visions, and Terminal Lucidity are all spiritual doorways into self-transcendence, i.e. to our being with an essence, beyond the separateness of the ego we know from day-to-day living. Read More

Animal-Assisted Interventions with Those Who Are Traumatized
This article focuses on the integrative and complementary healing approach of animal-assisted interventions (AAI) with those who are traumatized. Since conventional treatment methods of trauma-focused psychotherapy and/or medications often are not effective, an alternative modality called AAI is presented. Centered on the whole-person approach to health, the often-overlooked spiritual dimension as experienced through AAI is elucidated through the important human-animal bond. Read More (PDF)

Psychologists in Primary Care
The American health care system is undergoing tremendous transformation. The great value of primary care lies in its potential to comprehensively treat the whole person. Read More

Stress, Mind-Body Interventions and Bio-Feedback, and Pain
 We all experience stress in our day to day lives, sometimes moment by moment. Stress cannot be stopped, but what can be changed are our bodily and emotional responses to stress. Read More

A growing body of research and clinical reports support the benefits of utilizing animal-assisted therapy (AAT) as a complementary, transdisciplinary treatment intervention in medical settings. Read More

The results of burnout are emotional exhaustion, negative or cynical attitudes towards others and your self. Burnout: leads to depression, which is linked to heart disease, stroke, obestity, eating disorders, diabetes and some forms of cáncer. Read More

Over 4 million people are living with cancer today. Cancer is a stressful event that influences interpersonal relationships.  Read More

Grieving is UNLIKE getting over an illness. We do not heal from grief like we heal from a cold—we do not get over it completely in a few days or months. Read More

This article briefly summarize some of the literature on mindfulness and its specific application to changing eating behaviors.  Read More

Co-Dependent Behavior is doing something for another person when it puts their needs before your own, especially as in addiction situation.  Read More

Devotedly sitting with the spinning pottery wheel-- working, moving clay into balanced, expanded forms-- inspires inner spiritual awakening and connection to others. The process of sitting, being focused upon the turning clay is meditative. Read More

As psychologists, we are fortunate to have numerous ways to stretch our professional wings – teaching, research, public policy and practice. This article will highlight six dimensions which have been important in my growing a thriving private practice as a health psychologist.  Read More

The Spiritual Dimensions of Working With Families in a Medical Setting 
Working with families in a medical setting provides the health care team with ample opportunity to witness the diverse that impact individual patients under their care. One frequently overlooked dimension of family experience in medical settings is the "spiritual" -both as a family experience before injury, and as a factor that emerges spontaneously in response to illness.  Read More

Clinical Approaches To Care Of The Terminally Ill Family
Presented is the system's perspective of considering the terminally ill patient in the context of the hospital setting, the nuclear family, and the multigenerational family. Clinical examples are given to provide illustrations of methods of working with the terminally ill individual in these situations. Read More

Self And Body-Cathexis Change In Therapy And Yoga Groups 
According to literature, two very different types of groups produce positive changes in clients' attitudes towards themselves and their bodies. Group therapy, emphasizing interaction and confrontation of interpsychic conflict on the one hand, and yoga emphasizing non-interaction and transcendence of conflict by developing a calmed mind and relaxed body, on the other hand, both reap beneficial effects for participants. Little or no empirical research has compared therapy and yoga groups on the particular dimensions of body and self-cathexis. This study sought to answer the question of whether therapy and yoga group participants show comparable change in self-cathexis and body-cathexis. Read More

Toward the Application of General Systems Theory in Humanistic Psychology 
This paper demonstrates the common philosophical perspectives of general systems theory and humanistic psychology, describes general systems theory in terms of the challenges to humanistic psychology, and presents the concerns expressed by humanistic psychologists regarding the use of general systems theory.  Read More

Stanley Krippner's Influence on the Field of Parpapsychology
Stan Krippner, Ph.D. is one of the most dedicated and empirically based scientist-professors in consciousness studies of our times. Having devoted his life to the study of consciousness and the development of human potential, Stan has amassed a huge body of work covering research in dreams, altered states of consciousness, anthropology as it relates to shamanism, anomalous healing, and advances in education, creativity, biofeedback and neurofeedback. Read More

    

Laguna Niguel Psychologist also serving the nearby communities of Laguna Beach, Laguna Hills, Laguna Woods, Mission Viejo, Rancho Mission Viejo, San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano with offices in the City of Laguna Niguel, California.

If you are experiencing a life threatening emergency, you should call the crisis hotline at 1800/273-8255, dial 911
or go to the emergency room.