Individual Psychotherapy
I base my work with individuals in the relationship we co-create, one in which together we articulate and sort out the concerns about your life and relationships. While it’s not a fully balanced relationship (nor should it be), it is nevertheless a mutual, and collaborative relationship which holds meaning, growth and within which I help individuals verbalize and make known their intentions, hopes, and plans for change.
Couples Counseling
In my work with couples, I help individuals to recognize what their interactions mean to each other individually, i.e., separate and regardless of the other, and then as a couple. Combining this with communication skills, couples can learn to understand and, at times, re-recognize the other as an individual so as to not personalize, or misinterpret each other’s underlying intentions and move beyond habitual patterns and reactions and approach each other in newer, more productive ways. In sessions with couples, I work both with the content and the process. This means problem solving with the couple, as well as getting them to slow down and examine their exchanges for what they are saying, how it is being received and how it may be leading them astray from their intended message, and effecting how they feel about each other.
Children and Adolescents
I have experience working with children 5 years old and up. I do not do play therapy. I will however incorporate standard games, some art, and non-therapeutic toys as a means of establishing rapport with a child and taking any uncomfortable attention off of him or her. I am usually very active and playful with children where and when it is appropriate and employ a combination of questions and laying out scenarios from their lives to help them express feelings and generate alternative ways to look at their circumstances or behave. I also try where it is appropriate to include parents in the work with their children, i.e., offering parents suggestions, facilitating dialogues between parent(s) and child, and offering my observations to collaborate with parents.
In my work with adolescents, my focus is on helping young people recognize and integrate healthy self esteem, especially in relationships with peers, friends, and as they consider dating and more significant relationships. I feel that all relationships, especially dating, require learned social skills, a strong sense of one’s self and a capacity to make good choices.
While, much of my role with adolescents is to be their advocate. I also work with parents individually around parenting issues, as well as meeting with, and facilitating meaningful dialogues between parents and adolescents.
Men’s Issues
In my practice, I am interested in the complexities of male depression and the difficulties men have with risking intimacy and forming meaningful relationships. As a man, I understand the challenges faced by men, and the difficulty finding a suitable place and individual to explore these challenges. Men often suffer from depression that negatively effects confidence and the ability to succeed. While it’s useful to explore how we feel, men need to be asked what they will do, how they will do it, and some useful suggestions to go about doing it. As men we want solutions with career, relationships, family, children and individual identity. Men have a lot riding on these things and often times feel they can’t let this show with the people in their lives—certainly not before they have a handle on it.
Other Areas of Experience:
Addiction
Relationships and Dating
Infidelity and couples communication
Life transitions
Defining Identity and Self
Over-coming Isolation
Divorce; grieving the loss, parenting and co-parenting, financial and legal stresses, re-building identities and social contexts as single individuals, and dating.
Clinical supervision
In the last few years I have begun supervising Marriage and Family Therapist Interns, prior to licensure. My approach has been collegial, supportive, and collaborative. I encourage Interns to develop themselves and their own sensibilities in the on-going learning and practice of psychotherapy, especially to question and examine the particular givens of therapy in order to take ownership of their place and understanding within the field. Part of my approach is encourage interns to network and consider marketing approaches and strategies, so that they feel they have some footing stepping out into practice for themselves.