Individual Counseling and Psychotherapy
Individuals seek counseling and psychotherapy for a wide variety of concerns such as Depression, Anxiety, Relationships, Stress, Anxiety, Mental Health, Addiction, Affairs, Panic, Grief, Loss, Alcoholism, Addiction, Divorce, Substance Abuse, and Chronic Pain and Disability.. Therapy can help a person get to the heart of their concerns more quickly and objectively than what may be possible by talking with friends or family members.
I help clients actively address their problems and develop mastery in their lives. I use a variety of traditional and innovative approaches, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) for rapid treatment of a variety of issues, and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy that involves the use of traditional Buddhist practices of mindfulness and equanimity to prevent and ease depression.
For information about these approaches, click on the Articles Page as well as the Links Page.
Marriage & Couples
From the days of dating and courtship, through early marriage and the stresses of living together, child rearing, the middle-age crises and beyond, couples face challenges! Poor communication skills, low self-esteem, sexual problems, affairs, and difficulty expressing and asserting feelings can distort a couples original love and friendship and make it difficult for them to function healthfully. Even the normal stresses of family and career can push an otherwise healthy relationship into a spiral of misunderstanding and hurt feelings.
Couples counseling provides needed communication skills and problem solving to help partners get back on track, and even to heal deeper hurts and mistrust that block their capacity to love. New ways of seeing and relating to one’s partner are possible. And even when a couple decides that they are committed to ending the relationship, counseling can help make the difference between adversarial divorce and respectful cooperation.
I especially enjoy the opportunities for dynamic sharing and interactions that couples counseling affords. I tend to use Relationship Enhancement to strengthen couples communication skills, and problem-solving approaches to encourage behavioral change. We also often explore each partner’s family background to understand how their adult relationships have been influenced by the legacy of parental influences and childhood stressors.
Addiction Recovery
People struggling with abuse and addictions to alcohol, drugs, food, gambling, sex, shopping, and other compulsive/addictive behaviors find that the help of a therapist can augment and further the recovery they may have already begun through primary treatment programs and 12 Step or other support groups. Recovering persons often encounter issues they need to explore and heal further, including other co-occurring conditions like depression, anxiety, panic, and early life abuse/trauma. Often these conditions have worked together to bring unmanageability to a person’s life, and likewise need to be handled together to bring manageability and recovery.
From my background working directly with addictions, as well as with issues of codependency, I bring familiarity and insight into the issues of the addicted person and their family members.
