My Approach to Therapy

I have found that relationships are where people experience the greatest difficulty in their lives. In therapy, we have an opportunity to identify repetitive patterns and assumptions that interfere with starting and maintaining a satisfying relationship. I use an analytically informed approach, believing that past experiences affect present life, while maintaining a focus on the person’s present life and interactions; also using the relationship between patient and therapist as a valuable source of information. Additionally, I see many people who come in with anxiety or depression that they recognize is out of proportion to their circumstances, and which seems to have no apparent source. I also work with people burdened by issues that make it difficult to reach compromises with others. With over 30 years of private practice experience, I have been a therapist to many people, resolving issues such as low self-esteem, difficulty coping with stress, self-sabotage, lack of confidence, problems with aging, sexual identity, as well as numerous other important mental health matters. With patient and therapist working together, developing trust, the patient may allow him or herself to reflect about thoughts that have been too difficult to face alone. Often, people experience feelings they don’t even know how to identify, as they’ve never had someone to teach them what a feeling represents. We work together to develop the person’s internal resources as life always presents difficulties; it is our capacity to cope with these challenges that makes a difference. I bring a blend of warmth and intellectual energy to my work, seeing each person as special .

My approach is psychodynamic. When someone comes in, we talk about what is troubling them, what is going on in their life. Each person is a unique indiviual whose development and experiences over the years all influence who they are now. Were there pivotal events or relationships or dynamics of interaction that are repeated over and over into the present, outside of awareness? Do these affect choices we make in relationships so that the helpless feelings of childhood are lived out when, as an adult, there are options never available to a child? Do the things that paralyzed us as children paralyze us still as adults? The coping skills that were adaptive as a child may be maladaptive for an adult. We also look at early life and memories to see how they may affect feelings and actions in the present.

In our work together, we learn to see when this is happening and learn what options there are now that would otherwise not be recognized or feel possible. I try to get a good picture of what you are feeling, what is going on in your life and how your anxiety or depression or relationship problem is expressing itself. Often, anxiety and depression feel like they are coming out of nowhere, so that you feel anxious with no sense of being able to control or change those feelings. But these feelings are not random. They are always there for a reason. And this can only be understood by identifying what the triggers for those feelings are and what precipitate them. This is possible and involves patient and therapist working together.

Therapy both focuses and broadens your vision so that you see things you never did before and feel empowered to think in ways not possible before. This capacity becomes part of you in our work together so that you are able to take this ability outside the office and into your life.

I am a seasoned and experienced therapist with over 30 years of experience with patients from the United States as well as from China, India, the Middle East, Russia, Europe and elsewhere. As a result, I’m familiar with many cultures and with the experience of trying to function in discrepant worlds.

Making the decision to start therapy can feel very difficult. It can be hard to take the step that says a problem is real. And it means having to find someone with whom you feel comfortable, someone you sense you can trust and who you feel understands you. But therapy is the best opportunity to try to solve certain difficulties that may otherwise feel impossible to deal with and that can’t be solved any other way.

For a full list of services I provide, you may click here.