Areas of Expertise
Individual Therapy
Individual therapy is talk therapy in a safe, judgment free environment where together we are free to explore painful patterns and themes, thoughts and feelings that leave you feeling "stuck", and to understand both early developmental and present days experiences that cause problems and pain. Individual therapy goals often include increasing stability and satisfaction in life, resolving long standing conflictual feelings, and meeting life goals that have otherwise felt out of reach.
Couples Therapy
Different from individual therapy, couples therapy focuses on how a couple can invest in the "third" entity that is relationship---a dynamic that is uniquely created by both partners and what they bring to the table. These treatments often focus on how our greatest fears (loss, abondoment, failure) results in frustration, anger, and resentment within the relationship. Treatment can also focus on how wounds from our childhood get re-enacted in our adult relationships---sometimes outside of our awareness. Couples therapy goals often include improved communication, increased emotional intimacy, greater capacity to become secure and safe resources for each other, and increased ability to think and act more thoughtfully and lovingly.
Teletherapy
Both individual and couples therapy can be done over teletherapy. I use a HIPAA compliant telemedicine platform called doxy.me. In order to do teletherapy, you'll need a high speed internet connection, a safe and private location, and ideally a desktop, laptop, or device, although smart phones also work if need be.
My Approach
I believe that my job as a therapist and analyst is to listen deeply and carefully to what you say about yourself and your experience of life and to help you identify patterns, thoughts, and behaviors that no longer serve you, to help you make meaning out of your experiences, and to generally elevate your potential for life and interpersonal satisfaction.
To help you do this, it is important that I create and sustain a safe and trusting environment and that I also gently challenge some of your assumptions and ways in which you may have learned to protect yourself from the world. In most cases, our feelings and thoughts that no longer serve us were once brilliantly adaptive to the environment we found ourselves in. To change, we have to slowly and safely observe ourselves more clearly and then allow for a new and different way of being and living to emerge. I believe that the opportunity for growth and change lies in the intersection between trust and challenge and my approach is to hold the work we do together at that intersection.
As a trained psychoanalyst, I am interested and well-versed in theory, but I am not wed to it. Theory helps me to help you make sense of who you are and how your developmental experiences impacted you but finding the “right” theory is only important when it makes sense to you. I like and try to take complex ideas about development and apply them in basic and human ways to your life experience.
