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Individual Psychotherapy:
I work with a wide range of issues in my psychotherapy practice. Some issues require deeper work and a longer therapy course. For other more specific problems, a shorter-term approach is appropriate. Therapy sessions are typically one time per week for 50 minutes per session. If you are dealing with a crisis, then we may meet twice weekly until you are feeling better.
Some common issues and examples that I have helped people with in my psychotherapy practice include:
- Depression: Sadness, isolation, suicidal thoughts, hopelessness, lack of motivation, negative self-thoughts, low self-esteem, guilt, irritability, distraction and mood swings.
- Anxiety: General anxiety about daily life, panic attacks, obsessive thoughts, compulsive behaviors, feeling unsafe or feeling judged by others.
- Grief and loss: Death and dying, divorce, life-threatening illnesses, chronic illness or ending relationships.
- LGBT issues: Self-acceptance, coming out, stigma, shame, questioning your sexual or gender identity.
- Trauma: Physical abuse, sexual abuse, rape, assault/battery or domestic violence.
- Addictions: Alcohol, drugs, food, sex, gambling, shopping and co-dependent behaviors.
- Chronic mental illness: Coping with your own mental illness; mentally ill parents, children and/or siblings; having overwhelming feelings of powerlessness, shame or guilt.
- Anger Management: Fear of expressing anger, not allowing yourself to feel anger, feeling out of control, having rage, inability to forgive yourself/others or harboring resentments.
- Adult children of alcoholics/addicts: Feeling like you always need to be in control, feeling unsafe, repeating destructive patterns or having difficulty managing painful feelings.
- Coping Skills: Using unhealthy or self-destructive ways to cope with difficult feelings and situations.
- Relationships: Loneliness, poor boundaries, difficulty forming or maintaining relationships, unsatisfactory or strained relationships, feelings of abandonment, difficulty with intimacy or difficulty expressing feelings.
- Work Stress: Unemployment, unhappy with career choice, working too much, inability to cope with work responsibilities or experiencing conflicts with supervisors or colleagues.
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Couples Therapy:
My practice includes therapy with couples of all sexual orientations, ages and cultural backgrounds. Many times couples have patterns of interacting and communicating with one another that can cause distress in the relationship. It can be very hard to talk directly about these issues without a neutral third party. I can help you talk to each other about painful issues, help you to recognize dysfunctional patterns in your relationship and teach you practical communication skills to improve your understanding of each other. I use current research studied on couples over the last 30 years by Dr. John Gottman, to guide my practice interventions. You will learn about the qualities that contribute to successful and unsuccessful relationships and learn techniques to help you work through tough conflicts.
I work with couples on a weekly basis for 50-minute or 80-minute session lengths depending on the specific issues you are experiencing.
Some common issues I work on with couples include:
- Managing Conflicts: Disagreements occur in all relationships it's how you deal with them that really matters. Learn to manage your conflicts respectfully, develop boundaries around arguing and develop conflict negotiation skills.
- Improving communication: Learn to recognize and change unhealthy communication patterns, improve listening skills, improve self-expression of needs and decrease misunderstandings that can lead to conflict.
- Divorce, separation, break-up: Therapy can help you say goodbye and have closure during this very difficult time, develop a plan around leaving, learn how to talk with your children about this change and develop a plan to co-parent.
- Infidelity: Affairs are often a symptom in a relationship in which one or both partners are unhappy. Learn to talk about and work through the pain of the affair and begin to build trust. Explore what was happening in the relationship prior to the affair and learn new ways of getting unmet emotional needs met.
- Grief and loss: Issues of death and dying, infertility, chronic illness, divorce, separation, lost dreams/desires can be devastating. Learn to talk about these issues together and implement strategies to cope with overwhelming feelings.
- Parenting difficulties: Learn new parenting techniques, explore values and beliefs behind parenting differences to decrease conflicts and increase understanding.
- Control issues: Many times these issues are co-created, however this may be difficult to see. In therapy, we can look at each partner's role in creating this dynamic to begin to make changes in the relationship.
- Premarital counseling: Explore fears, partner expectations, family roles, life goals, communication differences and conflict management.
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Child Therapy:
If your child is experiencing distress it may be difficult to initiate therapy. It is often helpful to remember that research shows that the sooner your child receives help, the better the chances are for the issue to resolve or improve. Many times parents think that their child will be labeled negatively by attending therapy, however it is likely that a label already exists and this gives everyone an opportunity to produce positive change, leaving the label behind. I work with children and adolescents ages 3-17. Play therapy is the primary treatment for children ages 3-12. For adolescents the therapy is mostly talk therapy, however it can involve expressive art activities. Play therapy involves working out emotional issues through toys that allow the child to express painful or difficult issues in a non-threatening way. Children act out the issues they are having symbolically in the play and it is my job to ask questions and play along to help the child work through the issue.
Some common examples of issues I work on in my practice with children/adolescents include:
- Behavioral difficulties: Temper tantrums, unruly behaviors, fighting at school/home, not listening to adults or parent/child conflicts.
- Depression: In children and adolescents depression can manifest with irritable mood, anger, lack of interest or participation in previously enjoyable activities or withdrawing from friends/family.
- Anxiety: Difficulty leaving parents/caregivers, excessive worries about the safety of self/others, compulsive behaviors, indecisiveness or fearfulness.
- Trauma: Being a past victim of abuse/neglect. Witnessing or experiencing violence can cause sadness, overwhelming anxiety and feelings of being unsafe in the world.
- Grief/Loss: Dealing with a chronic illness in self or family member, death of family/friends or divorce/separation in parents/caregivers.
- Relationship Issues: Having difficulty making friends, shyness, hostility, passivity or conflicts with peers.
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Family Therapy:
I provide therapy and consultation to families of all sexual orientations, cultural backgrounds and family units. Family therapy will often occur as a part of the child therapy work through having family sessions or sessions with caregivers only on an ongoing basis. The information you have about how your child is functioning at home, within the family and at school is a critical part of the treatment process.
Some other issues I have addressed in my work with families include:
- Coping with grief, loss, death and dying issues
- Mental illness in a family member
- Alcohol or drug use in a family member
- Divorce, separation, remarriage
- Parent/child/adolescent/sibling conflict
- Parenting children with behavioral or academic problems
- Parenting special needs children
- Step-parenting
- Adoption
- Co-parenting after separation and/or divorce
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