Articles - Chele Yntema

The Value in Emotion

Posted on March 29, 2024May 19, 2024 by Chele Yntema

The ability to involve conscious processing with something as fundamental as the creation of meaning, social relatedness, and perceptual processing certainly does give us an increase in the flexibility of our responses to the environment. Having a consciousness of emotions is especially important in the social environment.Without it, we are...Read More

The Evolution of the Authentic Self and Parts: A Protective Fragmentation

Posted on February 17, 2024March 7, 2024 by Chele Yntema

Are there times in your life when you find yourself in connections, conversations, collaborations, or relational dynamics that leave you feeling like you could not show up as your authentic Self? For many of us there have been interpersonal interactions throughout our lives that seem to have this uncanny ability...Read More

Caring for the Young Carer

Posted on February 12, 2024February 15, 2024 by Chele Yntema

This post was originally written for an interview with Wellways - you can read their article here Years ago, as I began my career in mental health and well-being, I had never truly pondered on the significance of the developing mind, let alone on its paradoxical complexity. Yet, as we...Read More

Finding your Self in the Midst of Chaos

Posted on December 30, 2023December 30, 2023 by Chele Yntema

Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again. Thich Nhat Hanh Coming Back to Body and Breath Guided Meditation: The Breathing Meditation - Sarah...Read More

For the Invisible Ones

Posted on April 19, 2023April 19, 2023 by Chele Yntema

A beautiful composition that speaks with heart to the lasting impact of childhood neglect, and the courage of one woman to create change. For the Invisible Ones by Aven Harper "Emotional and relational absence in childhood takes many forms and has a wide range of impacts. This short film describes...Read More

Functional Fundamentals – Fundamental Nature of Self & Other Experiencing in the World

Posted on April 7, 2023May 19, 2024 by Chele Yntema

MIND BODY CONNECTION & the Functional Fundamentals of Humanity Without a theory of human beings there can be no theory of psychotherapy. Lapworth & Sills, 2010 Fundamental Nature of Self & Other Experiencing in the World Whilst I share my fundamental belief in the Divine herein, I do not subscribe...Read More

Functional Fundamentals – Fundamental Constitution of Self

Posted on April 6, 2023May 19, 2024 by Chele Yntema

MIND BODY CONNECTION & the Functional Fundamentals of Humanity Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul. Oscar Wilde Fundamental Constitution of Self It is important to ground psychotherapies on a knowledge of affective processes and thereby to understand how...Read More

Functional Fundamentals – Defining Wellbeing & Suffering

Posted on April 5, 2023May 19, 2024 by Chele Yntema

MIND BODY CONNECTION & the Functional Fundamentals of Humanity The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain. Gabor Mate Defining Wellbeing and Suffering When we appreciate the fundamental nature of human experience and the fundamental constitution of Self as it relates to Other(s) and the World we...Read More

Framework Fundamentals – Co-Regulated Connection

Posted on April 4, 2023May 19, 2024 by Chele Yntema

MIND BODY CONNECTION & the Therapeutic Fundamentals of Practice When we are held in safety by another’s non-judgmental receptivity, we naturally open to more awareness of sensation, feelings, and the thoughts that arise from and accompanying them. The stability of our joined windows of tolerance makes what was intolerable and...Read More

Framework Fundamentals – Compassionate Collaboration

Posted on April 3, 2023May 19, 2024 by Chele Yntema

MIND BODY CONNECTION & the Therapeutic Fundamentals of Practice Outcome is enhanced when the therapist uses modalities and defines goals consistent with the life experiences and cultural values of the client. No single approach is equally effective across all populations and life situations Collins & Arthur, 2010 Compassionate Collaboration Compassionate...Read More

Framework Fundamentals – Contextual Coherence

Posted on April 2, 2023May 19, 2024 by Chele Yntema

MIND BODY CONNECTION & the Therapeutic Fundamentals of Practice When a person is in a more coherent state there is a shift in the relative autonomic balance toward increased parasympathetic activity (vagal tone), increased heart-brain synchronization and entrainment between diverse physiological systems. In this mode, the body’s systems function with...Read More

The Embodied and Relational Self in Context

Posted on November 10, 2022May 5, 2024 by Chele Yntema

Who are we really? And what does it mean when we say, “this is me”? What is the “this” that we call “the self”? And why are so many studies revealing that in our modern life people are feeling ever more isolated even though they are more digitally connected? How...Read More

The Embodied and Relational Self in Professional Identity

Posted on June 14, 2022November 10, 2022 by Chele Yntema

What has happened to our ability to dwell in unknowing, to live inside a question and coexist with the tensions of uncertainty? Where is our willingness to incubate pain and let it birth something new? What has happened to patient unfolding, to endurance? These things are what form the ground...Read More

The Therapeutic Relationship and The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Change

Posted on December 26, 2021November 10, 2022 by Chele Yntema

There are certain emergent anthropological dynamics that often seem forgotten in our westernised society. Such might be, at least to me, the innate integrative capacity of the mind-body that emerges when we, as a human species, find ourselves in authentic, respectful, and reciprocal relationships (2 Corinthians 6; Cozolino, 2002; van...Read More

When vulnerability meets availability: A complex fractalated phenomenon that holds the potentiality of The Divine

Posted on October 30, 2021December 14, 2021 by Chele Yntema

Imagine various relationships you have with other people: sometimes we feel understood and our inner meanings of the mind are seen and respected. Other relationships may be more challenging, and the inner reality of our feelings and thoughts are unseen and disrespected. We send out communication to another person through...Read More

You Care too Much: The Nature of Caring in Counselling

Posted on October 30, 2021 by Chele Yntema

Nearly a year ago a professional I respected bellowed the words “You care too much!”, and as the dissonance I had been harbouring toward the role I was in came crashing down, I finally realised how important it was to me to care. Moreover, as I progress into reflective supervisory...Read More

Neuroception

Posted on April 28, 2021August 8, 2021 by Chele Yntema

Neuroception is the term coined by Stephen Porges to represent our innate capacity to move toward or away from social engagement. More specifically it is a body to brain process that senses or “detects and distinguishes” safe from dangerous or life threatening environments (including both situational and relational stimulus). Porges...Read More

Homeostasis

Posted on April 26, 2021June 28, 2021 by Chele Yntema

Though we may not always pay attention to it, within every living thing there is an inherent and adaptive awareness. It is an awareness that gives rise not only to the basic functionality of our living and being Self, but so too to the emergence of our sensing, perceiving, interpreting,...Read More

Resume Of Chele Yntema

Posted on March 27, 2021April 11, 2024 by Chele Yntema

WHO I AM PROFESSIONALLY Curriculum Vitae Of Chele Yntema As a proficient therapist Chele has worked personally and professionally in extending her passion for Complex & Developmental Trauma and its ongoing impact on children, youth, and families. This passion has to her deep appreciation for all aspects of humanity and...Read More

Corrective Emotional Experience: The paradoxical line in my understanding

Posted on November 13, 2020June 28, 2021 by Chele Yntema

Under stress, Self found relentless fear and the need for a nourishing level of reception, connection, and protection. Under guilt, Self found deceptive disgust and the need for an adaptable level of difference, independence, and acceptance. Under shame, Self found unparallel grief and the need for an authentic level of...Read More

Transference: From past to present and into the future

Posted on November 12, 2020June 28, 2021 by Chele Yntema

Like an active vortex that sucks in atmospheric textures, swirls them around and spits out a reflection of our earliest years, transference is a felt sense within varied situational milieu that reflects a uniquely personal perceptual shaping of reality. This is a reality that matches early embedded emotional-motivational patterns of...Read More

Defence Mechanisms: In my Defence

Posted on November 11, 2020November 9, 2020 by Chele Yntema

As I read and as I sit here in preparation for writing my heart begins to race, my stomach fills with a tizzy of tension, my eyes open wide, I do not blink, and as I begin to hold my breath I grit my jaw and clench my body knowing...Read More

To Love and To Suffer

Posted on November 10, 2020November 6, 2020 by Chele Yntema

How is it that there can be a reckoning of the paradoxical questions that have plagued humanity for all of time? Questions of heartache and hopelessness, inequity and scarcity, disease and illness as they co-exist with questions of health and wellness, equitability and fruition, of faith, of hope, of love...Read More

Within the Window

Posted on November 8, 2020January 21, 2021 by Chele Yntema

Our nervous system’s window of tolerance – the intensity of feeling we can experience while still maintaining connection with another – is continually expanding and contracting. When we are physically alone, the continually fluctuating breadth of our window depends on the strength of the regulatory system built in relationship with...Read More

Containment and Non-Reactivity

Posted on November 6, 2020 by Chele Yntema

The therapist is comfortable sharing whatever emotions the client has and, in addition, wants to know the clients authentic experience more fully – as good or as bad as it actually is for them – without minimising or exaggerating it as others have often done. In attachment terms, this highly...Read More

Shame was always there

Posted on August 21, 2020August 21, 2020 by Chele Yntema

There is not a time where shame has not been present; not a time where I have not wondered “what is wrong with me”. I was never “normal”; never good enough: never smart enough, never fast enough, never slim enough, never fit enough, never pretty enough. Yet paradoxically I was...Read More

The Sociology of Culture and the Paradoxical Nature of Diversity. Culturally-Infused Practice in Counselling.

Posted on April 21, 2019 by Chele Yntema

Born from and into relationship, we are - the human race is, anything but an isolated species. Indeed, there is a universal reality that self-concept and identity are insurmountably enmeshed within ever evolving cultural contexts (Lago, 2005; Lott, 2010; Matsumoto & Juang, 2008; Siegel, 2012). Yet, it would be foolish...Read More

Are you in conflict or collaboration?

Posted on September 23, 2018August 10, 2020 by Chele Yntema

Are you in conflict or collaboration? . Even in the most dire situations I am coming to understanding the empowerment we offer by approaching others from a place of non judgmental listening. . At the same time, I am learning that for it to be collaboration, listening is not enough; though...Read More

Courage

Posted on September 23, 2018August 10, 2020 by Chele Yntema

To find the courage within us that enables us to see choice is to find and connect to our inherent heart. It is in our inherent heart that we hold the clarity, meaning, and poignancy the we need in lieu and in the light of any suffering we endure. So...Read More

Human Freedom

Posted on September 23, 2018August 10, 2020 by Chele Yntema

What is human freedom? I used to suffer daily worrying about my “what if’s”... torturing myself allowing my mind to become exhausted by thinking. It has been journey of learning to be mindful and seeking change by taking responsibility of my thoughts. And it would be naive of me not...Read More

Freedom

Posted on September 23, 2018August 10, 2020 by Chele Yntema

What is Freedom? We are tangible yet intangible creatures capable of the extraordinary if only we choose to seek depth and understanding of why what is, what it is. Without depth of knowledge, without truly investigating why we are who we are, how could we possibly fathom who we could...Read More

Hope

Posted on September 23, 2018August 10, 2020 by Chele Yntema

Reading about hope we may often assume that hope comes from setting explicit intentions or following dreams, ambitions, and aspirations. —- Yet, if in the past you have been taught, shown, or lived in experiences where relationships have negated to support courage and achievement (no matter how small that step...Read More

You only lose what you cling to…

Posted on September 23, 2018August 10, 2020 by Chele Yntema

I never really understood concepts like this until I left a life that wasn’t fitting well with my soul. At the time I thought what I was clinging to was the “right thing”. That holding fast to embedded and imbued traditionalist values that I had been taught, yet that I...Read More

Silence and Solitude

Posted on August 17, 2018August 10, 2020 by Chele Yntema

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations Each day I ensure I cultivate a space for silence in solitude. It is in this space that I find my breath and simply allow myself to pay attention. Thoughts come thoughts...Read More

Choices

Posted on August 17, 2018August 10, 2020 by Chele Yntema

Choices, Choices, Choices... Reading an article yesterday, and today as I came to start writing about meditation (the what, the why, the science, and the how) I can’t help to think about the precious gift we have been given in the ability to choose. To me choices are an endowment...Read More

The final word is love…

Posted on August 17, 2018August 10, 2020 by Chele Yntema

“The final word is love… To love we must know each other … and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone any more. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship. We have...Read More

I am who I am

Posted on August 17, 2018August 10, 2020 by Chele Yntema

I am who I am. Listening to a podcast this afternoon I began to remember why I am who I am, and why paying attention to why I am who I am is important. To know the wounds of my heart and to be guided by them, not in hate...Read More

The Gift

Posted on August 17, 2018August 10, 2020 by Chele Yntema

The Gift in sadness... Though there still remains a deep grief, there is a place in my heart that can accept my past for the gift it has given me. Without my past I wouldn’t be who I am today, I wouldn’t believe in an ever present God who loves...Read More

Compassion and Kindness

Posted on August 17, 2018August 10, 2020 by Chele Yntema

Self care and the intention to cultivate a compassionate space for ourselves first and foremost is not selfish. Without attuning first to our inherent needs for safety, rest, sustenance, connection, and self expression we are unable to attune to the finer qualities of our minds and hearts that allow for...Read More

Trust the life that is here

Posted on August 17, 2018August 10, 2020 by Chele Yntema

Trust the life that is here... I think sometimes it is easy to get swept up in our ambitions, aspirations, pursuits, or perceived purposes. Yet, all the times I find myself in a swirl of hustle and bustle, trying to do this or that in pursuit of my goals I...Read More

Self Care – Rest, Recouperate, Rejuvenate

Posted on August 17, 2018August 10, 2020 by Chele Yntema

This week I have been reminded just how important it is to rest, to come back to a place where I feel connected and at peace. In winter this place for me is in the rays of light that radiate from the mid morning or afternoon sun. Self care is...Read More

Hope

Posted on August 17, 2018 by Chele Yntema

I’ve had a bit of an anxiety stirring week, many things not “going my way” - yet as I put some of my anxieties aside and had coffee and a chat with a close friend I realised that even in the mess and chaos, even in my self doubt and...Read More

Home

Posted on August 17, 2018 by Chele Yntema

Sometimes after a long draining day all I need is to be home. To be me, to enjoy being me, and to be still and present in whatever arises within me ❤️🙏🏻 [content_block id=1189 slug=thank-you]

Self Care – do not do what you are “suppose to”

Posted on August 17, 2018 by Chele Yntema

Quite often we find ourselves falling into the trap of doing what we feel we are “supposed to” “have to” or “need to” in the sacrifice of our own needs or of self care. Although sometimes it can be hard to tell those we respect, care about, or even those...Read More

Innate Passion

Posted on July 21, 2018July 21, 2018 by Chele Yntema

I truly believe that when you follow your innate passion the flow of life prevails: time appears to come into fruition, momentum simply flourishes, and what seems like needed discipline becomes anticipation and incitement. From the moment you were just a light in the eye of The Devine an innate...Read More

Awareness

Posted on July 21, 2018July 21, 2018 by Chele Yntema

Listening to an amazing podcast this afternoon I found myself smiling, nodding, and agreeing out loud on the bus! I love the idea of awareness and paying attention to my thoughts without judgment, simply acknowledging their presence and simply allowing them to be... and I love that with dedicated practise...Read More

The Human Heart

Posted on July 16, 2018July 16, 2018 by Chele Yntema

I find the human heart and the heart-brain connection such an immersive topic... I am fascinated at the findings that support what traditions and cultures have known for many moons... Our hearts guide us, they connect with others on levels beyond what we can see, and not only that, we...Read More

The Simple Path

Posted on July 16, 2018July 16, 2018 by Chele Yntema

What does the simple path really mean? After spending a day immersed in the research of potential and what it means to cultivate a life living unto innate destiny, I am inspired more than ever to cultivate a space that fosters simple mindful presence. To make time to acknowledge the...Read More

Peace Within

Posted on July 16, 2018July 16, 2018 by Chele Yntema

"Peace requires something far more difficult than revenge or merely turning the other cheek; it requires empathising with the fears and unmet needs that provide the impetus for people to attack each other. Being aware of those feelings and needs, people lose their desires to attack back because they see...Read More

Codependency

Posted on July 9, 2018July 10, 2018 by Chele Yntema

Codependency can be an overwhelming, negative, and sometimes toxic cycle in relationships. Have you ever wondered why sometimes no matter how hard to try to help others, they seem to remain a victim? Or perhaps you feel as though others often continually treat you as someone who is forever in...Read More