LCSW, 16 years of experience
Hello, I am a psychotherapist in full-time private practice with 15+ years of experience working with a diverse group of clients--diverse in age, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, ethnicity, social and religious outlook. I can help you with feelings of depression, anger and anxiety, social isolation, histories of trauma and estrangement, and recovery from experiences in families troubled by divorce, addiction, mental illness, physical or sexual abuse.
My first aim is to establish a warm, trusting, and collaborative relationship in which you feel safe to explore what led you to try therapy. Then allowing space for listening, reflection and honest talk, I can help you find the courage to face painful truths and make healthy changes in your life. This kind of work fosters kinder, saner relationships with yourself and others over time as the insights, experience of caring support, and practice of open communication are integrated into your everyday life.
I listen closely--for patterns that emerge from your unique life experiences and not just the problems that hold you back, but the resilience, skills and truly creative strategies that have gotten you this far. Together we work to understand more than just your symptoms, the whole of you, what got you to this place, where it is you long to be, and how you can get there from here.
I work with those who have come to a clear decision about what needs to be addressed in their lives. You may not know exactly why or how, but you know you want change and you're willing to do what it takes to get to a better place. This kind of focus and intention can bring about real results.
Psychoanalysis is, to my mind, the best of a long rich conversation about what we're doing when we practice psychotherapy. It offers some of the most profound discoveries of our time: working with unconscious aspects of experience, how we internalize our most important early relationships and play out patterns of coping and relating in our adult lives. Watching and listening for these patterns, knowing how to orient to them when they emerge, is a key strength of this treatment method.
IFS is a practical application of the rich, complex theory of object relations with origins in psychoanalytic thought and practice. This method allows us to identify parts of ourselves that serve various key functions in keeping us safe, organized and functional. Sometimes these parts are at odds or do their job in ways that harm more than they help. Teasing out these functions and snarls is an important aspect of clearing the way for more functional strategies for living.
Along with talking about feelings, thoughts, memories--the body gives us signals we can decode to understand better what makes us happy and what needs to change. Sometimes we have to calm ourselves enough to think straight. Somatic practices help us recognize how anxiety, depression, agitation and unease show up in the body with strategies for coming back to ourselves in healthier ways.