Dr. Nicki J. Monti is not your typical therapist. Dr. Nicki instantly gets to the core of presented issues, and immediately provides a clear path for genuine change. Her no-nonsense approach combines with extraordinary compassion and good humor to offer a clear, authoritative voice free of judgment and full of possibility. She quickly brings forward what others have somehow missed and then offers practical tools for truly productive resolution. She uses wit and her own experiences to reveal what’s undermining you, and to get you beyond being ‘stuck in your own story.’
Dr. Nicki conducts individual, group and corporate sessions. Her successful book series about being Stuck In The Story No More, her Television appearances, her articles, and podcasts have made her into a household name. Dr. Nicki has been seen on Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Millionaire Matchmaker, Love Handles and many other Reality Television shows where her compassion, honesty and genuine expertise shine an instant light on circumstances and offer actual change.
Psychotherapist & Author
Dr. Nicki changes lives. But that’s not what she’d say. She would tell you that she’s the catalyst, that her clients change their own lives. That her clients accept the difficult challenge of examining their belief systems and exposing change. It’s no wonder that Dr. Nicki is known as “The Thinking Person’s Doctor.”
Throughout her work, Dr. Nicki uses her extraordinary compassion, sense of fun and humor, and years of experience to bring light to the basis of her work: that everything we do from start to finish is about relationships – the relationship we have with ourselves and the relationship we have to others. How we play out those relationships decides how our life feels from moment to moment, from day to day, and from decade to decade.
Dr. Nicki learned through her own experiences that none of us need feel defeated by the experiences of our lives. Everything that happens gives to us more than it takes from us, if we know how to take what is given.
Whether working with her one-on-one, using her new book and workbook, or attending one of her ground breaking workshops, Dr. Nicki provides people with the tools they need to identify their defenses – solutions for coping with, or neutralizing, defensiveness and alternative ways to deal with specific defensive reactions.
Dr. Nicki’s credentials are impressive. But more impressive than her credentials is the woman herself. Dr. Nicki does not walk into a room unnoticed. Her life-altering work has impacted the lives of many people. She has been described as an in-your-face therapist, a description that makes her proud.
“Directness and truth-telling are two of my basic professional tools” says Dr. Nicki.
Dr. Nicki was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of traveling sales people. When she was seven she went away to boarding schools for 11 years, first to Ojai, then on to the East Coast. After finishing school, she spent a year in Europe before coming back to America.
At age 37, after working at many different jobs, and on the good advice of her goddaughter, Nicki went back to school to get her psychology credentials. She was sitting in an intake session and in a flash of truth realized: “This is it.” She knew that she had found her calling.
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin (B.A. in Communications), Sierra University (M.A. in Psychology), and Pacific Western University (Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology), Dr. Nicki received additional training at the highly esteemed Southern California Counseling Clinic and at the Sojourn Shelter for Abused Women and Children. She also has studied with such innovators as Hal Stone, creator of voice dialogue, and internationally recognized author and teacher of self-realization, W. Brugh Joy, M.D.
In 1987, Dr. Nicki began her private clinical practice, which includes lectures, workshops, and courses on a wide range of topics. She works with individuals, couples, and groups, specializing in interpersonal relationships and addictions (to drugs, food, money, people, sex, work).
In late 2002, Dr. Nicki released her long awaited book, “Stuck In The Story No More,” and companion workbook, “Stuck No More.” A unique, breakthrough approach to the examination of the devastating impact unconscious psychological defenses can have on individuals, “Stuck in the Story No More” shows how the crippling patterns of those defenses can be identified and broken. Her book includes a set of simple tools to help people understand and interrupt the defenses that hold them back from having the life they want. The book’s forward is by Margaret Cho, who attributes Dr. Nicki with saving her life.
Dr. Nicki, a CEU approved presenter, offers a variety of workshops, addressing a wide range of topics and issues, that help people improve their lives, emotionally, spiritually and logically.
Her current workshop series includes:
Genesis – focused on childhood developmental experiences
Metamorphosis – a six-month Psycho-Spiritual Integration Process
Revelations – a spiritually-based six month course that includes Shame Scene work, Dream work, Defense work, Shadow work and Ritual work
Noah Levine is a Buddhist teacher, author and counselor. He is trained to teach by Jack Kornfield of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA. He teaches meditation classes, workshops and retreats nationally as well as leading groups in juvenile halls and prisons. Noah holds a masters degree in counseling psychology from CIIS. He has studied with many prominent teachers in both the Theravadan and Mahayanan Buddhist traditions.