Individual Psychotherapy

I help people get to the root of and understand the forces within that cause suffering and confusion. My approach is engaging, warm and expansive. I have over 25 years of experience with many types of people from different cultures and backgrounds. I approach people as human beings with complex emotions and complicated lives, who are trying to live a better life with less stress and struggle.

People often have scripts or narratives of who they are and why they came to living the kind of life they have created. I work to help people develop ways of reflecting on what has been, what is, and what might be in order to allow more choice in life. We often get stuck or paralyzed and tolerate an existence that may not reflect all that we initially wanted out of life, or how we imagined our talents and skills would be put to use. We sometimes land in romantic and sexual relationships that are frustrating and painful because we don’t always understand why we pick the partners that we do, or why we often feel misunderstood, unloved or frustrated.

Psychotherapy gives you a private space with confidentiality, free of partners, spouses, family and friends. While close friendships often give us support, they don’t provide the objectivity that a professional therapeutic relationship offers. Shame, guilt, anxiety or difficulties in asking for help can be spoken of with a professional psychotherapist and understood as a part of the terrain of getting a better perspective and freeing yourself of repetitive patterns and behaviors that have blocked you or stunted your growth.

I often hear from patients their fear of the stigma of being in psychotherapy. My philosophy is that it takes courage to look at oneself and therapy is nothing to be ashamed of. It takes courage to look at oneself instead of blaming circumstances and people around you. If life’s problems were easy to handle alone we’d all be doing that. My profession is based in the idea that feeling understood, being listened to carefully in a focused way and hearing other ways to think about yourself are actually helpful and curative.