My practice could be described as comprehensive and integrative psychotherapy. My training ranges from psychoanalysis to mind body therapies and provides me with a set of scientifically based tools and techniques with which we can explore your conscious and unconscious, intrapersonal and interpersonal world. I have successfully treated many clients and supervised many psychotherapists in training. I pride myself on keeping an open mind and being receptive to new theories and research on human behavior.
I practice psychotherapy as an active participatory relationship between the patient and therapist.
I envision psychotherapy as a journey filled with all of the excitement, trepidation, and surprises of any passage into the unknown. My role (as therapist and guide) is to know the psychological terrain, e.g. the theories of human and relationship development, causes and treatments of psychological and psychosocial problems and the processes of change. My job is to know your life history, to stay empathically attuned to you, and to share with you the thrills, unexpected encounters, and dangers of your unique psychological journey. I provide you a safe space in which to explore your life choices and your inner and outer worlds. Your role, as client, is to risk being an active observer and a participant in your own unique growth experience. Your goal is to develop psychological hardiness so that you can comfortably make commitments, experience appropriate self control, and embrace challenges. Experiencing psychotherapy as “the hero’s journey,” Joseph Campbell’s term, is to me the ultimate psychotherapeutic experience.
I believe that life is a series of attachments and separations. Some are anticipated, such as the transition from grammar school to high school, from pre-puberty to puberty. Others are not anticipated, such as divorce and loss of one's job. Learning to accept and effectively cope with change is a major goal of psychotherapy. I work with you to help you to understand how you cope with changes and to be more adaptive and less destructive to yourself and others. I believe that your current “psychological state of being” (why and how you experience conflicts and stress), is just one of the possible ways you can be, and with you examine the possibilities for your life and how you might get there.
I believe that every patient is as unique as his/her fingerprint and there is not one therapy fits all. Just as gardeners try to create optimal conditions (soil, water, temperature) for the growth of specific plants, I try to provide optimal conditions (safety, empathy, warmth) for you to actualize your potential.
The therapy I do is for the most part verbal: discussing your relationships, dreams, disappointments, hopes and coping skills.
However, I believe that you cannot understand the mind without acknowledging and addressing the mind body connection. Your physical health - sleep habits, nutrition, exercise - as it impacts optimal mental health is grist for the mill. Close attention is paid to how your body expresses or withholds feelings, and the importance of general consciousness about good health in healing. I am actively involved in helping you to accept the Organization of Psychological, Immunological, Neurological and Endocrine systems (OPINE tm ) as they affect your mental health. In psychotherapy, we strive to help you to regulate feelings and emotional states and create balance in mind-body systems.
