Services

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Psychodynamic psychotherapy is a form of treatment that uses the therapist-client relationship as a vehicle to explore one's past experiences, expression of feelings, patterns of defense, avoidance of specific thoughts and emotions and specific styles of interpersonal relating.

This form of treatment is also sometimes called "psychoanalytic psychotherapy" and has existed in many forms since the late 1800s. I have found significant grounding in psychoanalytic methods to be necessary for proper assessment and treatment of developmental trauma, associated syndromes/disorders and many somatic/inflammatory responses. There has been much evolution of thought about psychoanalytic process since its beginnings. I am heavily trained in multiple methods and integrate contemporary ideas from Freudian theory, Ego Psychology, Object Relations Theories, Interpersonal Psychology, Self Psychology, Control-Mastery Theory, Attachment Theory, Modern Neuroscience and Relational/Intersubjective approaches in assessing and treating psychological and relational problems.

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)

EMDR is a highly studied form of integrative psychotherapy that has been used to successfully treat multiple problems. Some client conditions and situations that have improved with EMDR include Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), chronic pain, phantom limb pain, relationship issues and anxiety disorders that follow a traumatic experience. In addition to these conditions, EMDR is helpful in achieving peak levels of performance and is useful in conjunction with coaching techniques. My clients have found my background with attachment-based psychoanalytic/psychodynamic practice to be an invaluable asset to their successful outcomes with EMDR treatment.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of treatment that focuses on a specific problem with which a client presents. In CBT models of treatment, the work centers on both cognitions and behaviors that reinforce the client's symptoms or other identified problem. This form of treatment requires that the therapist be highly instructive in nature and use homework assignments to supplement work in between therapy sessions.

Parent Therapy

Parent therapy is often an integrative treatment used to work through problems that interfere with parents’ capacities and confidence in raising and launching their children. This involves attention to both current relational problems and longstanding patterns of attachment, affective regulation and independent functioning. I also believe that attention to the systems that impact a family's ability to maintain some sense of balance in their lives is critical to this form of treatment. I began this work as a response to treating children and adolescents with significant trauma histories. Now, I find great satisfaction in helping parents connect with their children at many different stages of development over the lifespan.

Women’s Sexual Health Consultation

Psychoanalysis as a discipline largely began in relation to issues affecting women’s emotional and sexual health. In Europe at the time, common treatments for issues impacting women’s emotional and sexual health consisted of clitoridectomy, lobotomy and/or institutionalization. Psychoanalysis was the first treatment which sought to address societal, familial and intraspsychic repression and dissociation through verbal communication rather than ongoing brutalization of women. Unfortunately, the idea of women's suffering being linked to experience is still fairly marginalized in American medicine. It is even further counterculture for the medical community to consider a woman’s subjectivity within her sexual experience. Due to limitations in western medical training, most professionals who work in areas related to women’s sexual health strictly focus on fertility, pregnancy, injury and disease in a way that often unintentionally further objectifies the female patient and further weakens her internal locus of control. I address more of my client’s individual subjectivity and defensive survival mechanisms which interfere with physiologically regulated, secure sexual connection and satisfaction. Despite this method being askew to our dominant culture, I find that it brings women and their partners (including, if not especially those women who identify as coming from conventionally repressive and/or religious backgrounds) greater connection, attachment security, sexual fulfillment and overall relationship satisfaction.

Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness Meditation is a practice of deliberately focusing one's attention on the present moment to gain insight and awareness into one's internal and external experiences. Modern life is full of technologies and activities that may divert our attention away from current reality. In addition to these distractions, our past experience may interfere with our ability tolerate the present moment. Many people run into blocks that disrupt their meditative practices. Some of these interruptions include lack of time, distraction, uncertainty, old habits and unwanted thoughts or emotions that arise during periods of meditation. I work with many clients to work through these types of interruptions to improve their ability to focus in mindfulness meditation practice. Mindfulness practice is one of many resources that I rely on heavily in treating emotional, cognitive and somatic (including inflammatory and autoimmune) responses to past traumatic experience.

Professional Training and Speaking

Outside of my practice, I offer a limited number of professional trainings and talks about recovery from developmental trauma and attachment.

Typically, I speak to groups about mental health, the process of recovery and successful reengagement that provides experiences of vitality throughout one’s life.

I am very comfortable speaking to a variety of people, including mental health clinicians, teachers, physical therapists, nurses, physicians, information technology professionals, engineers and business professionals. The trainings or talks that I offer are highly varied based on audience and organizational need. Please contact me directly if you would like to discuss your training or speaker needs for an upcoming event.

Webinar Trainings

As my practice is highly limited in terms of the number of clients I am able to serve at any one time, I offer webinar trainings that provide psychoeducation that is highly specified and focused to material that others frequently request. I typically provide these trainings in hourly increments. This is not psychotherapy but provides more opportunity to and access to mental health professionals, physicians, educators, business professionals and members of the public who are interested in learning applicable information about topics of health, arousal regulation, individual development and psychological theory.