Modalities

Who I Work With 

People come to therapy for many different reasons and by many different paths, but are often fundamentally looking for the same thing - to lead a happier, more fulfilled life.  Psychotherapy can help facilitate this by helping you develop stronger relationships with yourself, your partner, your children, extended family, friends, and co-workers.  I am available to work in a variety of modalities, and with people of a wide variety of ages, races, gender identifications, and sexual orientations.

Individual Adults: 

Psychotherapy is a unique and effective process that can allow us to experience ourselves and our lives from a new perspective, understand ourselves better, and improve qualities about ourselves, our relationships, and our lives that we wish to change. The therapeutic relationship is unlike any other relationship in your life -  friends or loved ones usually have their own ideas about you - what you should do and how you should be - that you may disagree with, and there usually needs to be a balance of give and take.  The psychotherapy process creates a space just for you.  I have quite a diverse practice, and enjoy working with individuals coming from a wide variety of ages, races, genders, and socio-economic statuses.

Couples:

Couples often find themselves stuck in patterns that do not make either partner feel good but seem impossible to change.  Couples therapy can create space that helps both you and your partner to  express difficult feelings, and to hear each other in a fresh way that can enable you both to deepen your connection and the understanding of each other that is needed for a mutually satisfying relationship.  Through couples therapy you will be able to explore how your individual thoughts, feelings, backgrounds, beliefs and behaviors are impacting each other and your relationship.  I enjoy and am experienced in working with many different types of couples, including lesbian, gay, transgender, heterosexual, and interracial couples.

Adolescents:

Adolescence is a time of growth and change, which is often turbulent and confusing. It is also a time for rapid identity development, as teens oscillate between attempting to separate from parents/caregivers, and continuing to depend on adults for emotional containment and support.  Talking with an interested and neutral adult can be tremendously useful for adolescents as they try to make sense of their thoughts, feelings, and desires.  Therapy can be quite helpful for adolescents as they attempt to navigate conflicting/confusing feelings and desires, combative relationships with both themselves and adults, and in increasing their capacity for reflection, critical thinking, and effective communication skills.  As adolescence is usually an intense time (particularly with the ubiquity of social media), it is normal for teens to have social and emotional challenges, however, sometimes this stage of development is particularly difficult, due to either external or internal factors.  Psychotherapy can help teens and parents understand where the difficulty is coming from, as well as increase their capacity to move through those difficulties together.

Parenting Work: 

Of all the jobs you've had in your life, parenting may be one of the most difficult, evocative, confusing ones you've experienced.  Issues from your own childhood come up at the same time that your kid is throwing you curve balls that you feel unprepared for.  It can sometimes feel impossible to figure out how to separate out your own issues from your kids’, as well as knowing when to let go versus when to hold the line.  This can feel especially true if you have your own trauma background, are struggling with getting on the same page as your parenting partner, or are feeling the stress of blended family issues.  I provide direct feedback and focused interventions that blends a psychodynamic understanding of family system dynamics with a research-based educational approach to help parents increase their capacity to balance their child/teen’s needs.

Consultation:

I bring the same values and approach to my work with my consultees as I do to my clinical work - intellectual rigor, emotional compassion, and a psychoanalytic approach combined with social justice values. I offer a space to reflect upon your clinical work that includes what you feel good about and what you struggle with, and am most interested in helping you be the therapist you want to be based on what you believe is curative. I am not invested in you doing your work exactly the way I do, and try to combine providing space for you to find your own way with the kind of containment that is sometimes needed in this very evocative work. Although I see a distinction between consultation and psychotherapy, with me, there is room in consultation for you to bring your personal self.