Couples Therapy
My approach to couples therapy combines my training as a psychotherapist with my training in Emotionally Focused couples therapy. I work with all couples; married, not married, straight or gay.
One of the things that sets me apart from other therapists who provide marital counseling is my focus on exploring each individual partner’s earlier life experiences. In my view, this is essential; we form attachments and develop attractions to others based on our own formative experiences. This can lead us to develop emotional patterns that we unintentionally bring into our current relationships. These patterns can result in difficulties with the building blocks of a healthy relationship: emotional intimacy, communication, sexual, differing parenting styles, anger, resentment, infidelity.
These patterns can cause conflict and distance for the couple, and can even undermine any “techniques” or “exercises” they’ve tried in previous couples therapy. I work with couples to identify these patterns and to explore them more deeply, helping each of you understand something about your partner that you may not have recognized before, or you may have lost sight of over time. This helps to reduce mal adaptive patterns, rebuild the relationship and create a deeper long lasting change.
Individual therapy
“Experience is not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you.”
-A. Huxley.
This quote sums up what I consider psychotherapy to be all about. I work with individuals to create a more useful understanding of themselves & each other to create a deeper long lasting change.
One thing I often hear from people who have been in therapy before is that they felt the therapist talked more than they did. This is not the experience people have when they work with me. My approach to individual therapy is to create trust by providing a non judgmental environment in which I will help you explore your situation, my questions and comments will be designed to help you discover yourself. I work with you in a collaborative way to understand the full picture of your circumstances, considering present day beliefs, thoughts, fears and desires in their historical context. This approach creates a new level of awareness which is the foundation for change.