Galen Clarke/Tribune

Suzanne Lopez holds a therapy session in her home with patient Karie Cooper. "I'd be lost without it," Cooper says. "I think without that regular guidance, I would not have made the amount of progress at all."

Galen Clarke/Tribune

Suzanne Lopez decorates her Albuquerque home with objects from around the world including Mexican Day of the Dead skeletons and skulls.

Galen Clarke/Tribune

Signs offering encouraging words hang on the walls of Suzanne Lopez's house to support her therapy sessions and lectures. She helps people deal with work-related problems and family and relationship issues.

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Suzanne Lopez believes everything that happens is the result of an attraction - envisioning what you want and getting it.

In the early 1990s, Lopez spent three years hoping to adopt a child. A friend, Jo Sanders, went to India and took pictures of a girl she saw there. When Lopez saw the photo of Angelica, who had been left on the outskirts of a village in India, she immediately felt a connection.

Lopez eventually brought the 3-year-old girl to the Los Angeles area and adopted her.

"Part of my journey is to see what I want and believe I can have what I want," Lopez reasoned.

The adoption story is an example of the type of positive-thinking, new-age psychotherapy Lopez practiced for more than 25 years in the Hollywood Hills. The power of the "laws of attraction," has grown wildly popular in the past year since the release of "The Secret" in video and book form. The theory holds that one's positive and negative thoughts create an energetic vibration affecting the course of the events in your life.

"The Secret" namechecks Plato, Beethoven and Einstein, and is touted as the key that unlocks the doors to "unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth - everything you have ever wanted."

Lopez says it is based on a discipline one needs to practice consciously.

"It is really you wanting and designing your life instead of just reacting," she said.

Lopez moved to Albuquerque nine months ago. Was that something she willed? Did she come here for a reason?

"The truth is that I don't know," Lopez said. What she knows is that she loves Albuquerque and says it has become "an interesting and vibrant city."

"I was very attracted to the changes I have seen in the city," she said.

Lopez will conduct a daylong workshop on June 23 and a two-day session on "Bridging Heaven and Earth" on June 30 and July 1.

Lopez says she is focused on teaching people in Albuquerque how to take advantage of "The Secret," which she uses in both her professional and personal life.

"It has become so popular to the general public, it is not really a secret," Lopez said.

Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres and Larry King have weighed in on the topic, and Newsweek devoted a cover story to it. This week, the book by Rhonda Byrne, which was released in November, was ranked No. 7 on the Amazon.com sales list, and it boasted 1,400 reviews by the online merchant's customers.

Since she moved to Albuquerque, Lopez has been working with people who have addictions - to drugs, alcohol, working and gambling. Other subjects are sexual harassment, woman's empowerment in the workplace and stress management.

She also deals with the love lives of couples and individuals.

"I work with people either looking for or looking how to get out of a relationship," she said.

She is the author of "Get Smart With Your Heart: The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Love" and "Lust and Lasting Relationships."

Lopez works out of her Northeast Heights home, which she has named Casa Paz y Amor. It is decorated with Chinese, Mexican and Indian furniture, fountains and hammocks in a "globally and eclectic style," she said.

In the living room, where she tends to clients, signs display words of encouragement and tribal masks and colorful paintings hang on the wall. Mexican ornaments of skulls, ceramics and pottery stand in shelves. Lopez calls it a relaxing oasis.

Her interests go beyond helping people with addictions. She takes on relationships and tries to coach people through a process. She also does group therapy and helps people deal with work-related problems and family issues.

Joanie Griffin, owner of Griffin & Associates, a local public relations firm, has gone to Lopez to get professional advice to keep advancing in her career.

"I want to take it to another level," Griffin said.

Griffin said she needed to clarify what she wanted in life. "I don't think they are anything new," she said. "Those concepts have been around forever."

Some have criticized "The Secret" and the theory of the laws of attraction, saying it lacks research and a scientific foundation. They say the idea of merely envisioning a life event or prosperity is perhaps a flimsy belief system.

"The book makes ridiculous claims that the reason why you get bills in your mail is because you are expecting them," said Benjamin Radford, the managing editor of the science magazine Skeptical Inquirer, based in Albuquerque. "No. The reason is because you have debts.

"The people who are really in danger by a book like this are the ones who have cancer or are in desperate need of something. They've been told in this book that all they need to do is think positive."

Lopez counters with an analogy about belief.

"I can tell you I don't believe in exercise, and I don't care if you believe or not, my body will change," she said. "It's not necessary if you believe at all. You don't have to believe in praying or exercising."

Other critics say "The Secret" focuses too much on acquiring money and material things.

Lopez doesn't see that.

"I think people have the right to make as much money as they can," she said.

Skeptics also suggest that if the laws of attraction worked as proponents say, there would be no poverty, discrimination or other social injustices.

"This book is for the people who look for easy answers," Radford said.

Lopez says that's an oversimplification.

"It's absolutely a process that requires ongoing consistency," she said.

She says she has seen results in her daily practice.

"Clients of mine changed concepts and people stopped being abused," Lopez said.

Karie Cooper sought out Lopez a year ago to deal with a gambling addiction.

She said "The Secret" is a way of "bringing positive things into your life."

"It's kind of like the steps, to get into a higher power," she said.

Cooper says the results speak for themselves.

"It's a daily process," she said, "but I remained abstinent, stopped working in the casino business."

And she's optimistic about the future as she continues to work with Lopez three to five times a week.

"The positive things are starting to come together," Cooper said.

Lopez says you have to be vigilant and apply the laws of attraction on a daily basis.

"It's a practice," she says.