Theoretical Orientation

There is no one correct way to conduct psychotherapy. Different practitioners adopt different perspectives about how they understand the human psyche and may accordingly gravitate toward a particular theoretical orientation over others. Some of the major paradigms in psychotherapy include the psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, systems, humanistic/existential, eclectic, and integrative perspectives. In addition, there can be further subdivisions within a given orientation.

My own theoretical orientation is broadly psychodynamic. The psychodynamic perspective weaves a number of specific beliefs and attitudes about the human condition into an overall sensibility or worldview that informs this particular brand of psychotherapy work. To begin with, the psychodynamic perspective views psychotherapy as an inherently holistic, contextual, and dimensional endeavor because it examines the socio-cultural world of subjective human meaning and intention rather than the physical world of objective natural science. Thus, we will be working in gray rather than in black and white.

In addition, the psychodynamic perspective generally includes the following elements*:

The meanings and motives behind our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are not always conscious to us.
It is human nature to have opposite or ambivalent feelings about the same thing, namely to experience internal conflict.
Human distress or dysfunction is an exaggerated or maladaptive form of a universal human tendency, and it arises from more than one cause and serves more than one function.
Our psychologies are a product of how our constitutional makeup and typical developmental challenges (nature) interact with our life experiences and the environmental conditions to which we are subject (nurture).
In observing and understanding a patient's struggles, there is heavy reliance upon the therapist’s subjectivity through identification, empathy, and attunement to affect.
Pursuing the “truth” of one’s experience is intrinsically healing.

* McWilliams, N. (2004). Psychoanalytic psychotherapy: A practitioner's guide. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Psychotherapeutic Process

Generally speaking, psychotherapy work targets both cognitive and affective processes in that it aims to provide you with both a new understanding (cognitive) and a new experience (affective) so that therapeutic change can be made. Although the psychotherapy process will always look and feel different for each person, gaining a deeper understanding about oneself in addition to experiencing a corrective relationship with the therapist are psychotherapy’s two main vehicles toward achieving personal growth and healthier psychological functioning.

Thus, one important part of psychotherapy work involves insight. Psychotherapy essentially asks you to engage in the discovery of yourself. It attempts to bring into your awareness that which you have disavowed and put out of your consciousness in order to avoid the conflict or pain associated with it. When you bring unconscious material into your conscious mind through psychotherapy, you put yourself in a position to view yourself honestly by confronting material that may be challenging to sit with. This new understanding of yourself gives you the freedom to not only make different choices in your life, but also accept that which is not under your control, so that you may potentially live a more realistic, productive, and satisfying life.

Another equally important component of the psychotherapeutic process concerns the therapeutic relationship between us that becomes established over time during the course of our work together. Because the difficulties that you face in your outside relationships are sometimes repeated in parallel form within the therapeutic relationship, psychotherapy provides a rich opportunity to examine these relationship dynamics as they unfold between us, offering not only a clearer understanding of how these patterns repeatedly play out in your life, but also a reparative experience in witnessing how these patterns are alternately addressed and managed within the therapeutic relationship. So, by talking about the micro-enactments that occur between us in session, we can reflect upon our relational patterns and find meaning in them that will help you to understand and respond differently to your relationships outside the therapy room. And by responding to distressing relationship dynamics therapeutically, I can also potentially provide you with a new relationship experience that helps you to dismantle maladaptive relational patterns that you may have internalized in prior relationships.

Treatment Modalities

I conduct individual psychotherapy for adults and older adolescents. I also have training in group psychotherapy. I do not work with couples or families.

Because the issues you bring to psychotherapy are not discrete, isolated events, but are very much embedded within the context of your life experiences, therapeutic change occurs in a broader and more global sense than some people may initially expect. Thus, unless we make alternate arrangements, you should plan to participate in long-term psychotherapy, which will provide us with the time necessary to put your presenting issues into a larger context and address them holistically. Because each person is unique, the duration of psychotherapy will of course vary from patient to patient, but in all cases, it will be mutually agreed upon by us as the psychotherapy process unfolds.