How I Came to My Practice
Like many of you, I have experienced depression, anxiety, substance abuse, issues of aging and illness, problems in relationships, career confusion, sexual ambivalence, questions of identity and meaning, and a form of creeping, low-level PTSD that results from growing up feeling very different from everyone else. In fact, I think that all of us who grew up with that feeling—whatever the reason—exhibit a kind of low-grade PTSD, forever at the mercy of reactive coping mechanisms we developed when we were children, still playing them out decades later when they’re probably doing more harm than good.
After successful careers in publishing, education, the arts, and the law, I returned to graduate school to study clinical psychology when I realized that I wanted to do for others what my own therapist had done for me. He helped me to put myself back together when I had fallen apart. I decided then I wanted to help people self-actualize, to become the best version of themselves they could be. Watching and actively helping a client “blossom” has turned out to be the most rewarding work I have ever done.
To help you grow, we will often work on both short-term and long-term goals: The short-term to help you get through the week, the long-term to help you understand why you keep repeating the same behaviors year after year. My goal is for you to leave our sessions with something you can use right away. And if we cannot find definitive answers, then I hope at least we can arrive at some consolation, acceptance, and self-compassion.
My years of life-experience, study of psychology and mental health, and thousands of hours of psychotherapy, counseling, and coaching clients of all kinds has taught me a very humanistic and compassionate form of therapy, and one I hope you will find both nurturing and empowering.