My Approach: Counseling, Depth Psychology, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Dream Work

There are many types of psychotherapy and counseling, all designed to help people find relief and actualize change. With 25 years of practice in counseling psychology, and advanced training in depth psychology, clinical psychology, and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, I've had time to master a variety of techniques. While my approach is flexible and I use what best meets a person's needs in a given moment, I have come to find the depth and psychoanalytic therapies the most effective for long term, meaningful change, and so they form the central orientation in my work:

Humanistic Psychology:

The humanistic approach values the uniqueness of each individual. Its corner stones are compassionate listening, positive regard, and recognizing the resilience of the human spirit.

Phenomenology:

This orientation reminds us to pay attention to what is thought, felt, sensed, and imagined in any given moment. Attention to one's experience can have a potent impact on self-understanding.

While phenomenology as a field of psychology arises out of the western philosophical tradition, the clinical practice of paying attention-of noticing what you notice- is very similar to many forms of eastern meditation and mindfulness practice.

Developmental, Family Systems, and Object Relations Theories:

Developmental theory helps us understand the general trends in normal, healthy development and to have compassion for the challenges created when certain milestones are complicated by early life events.

Object relations theory explores how early ways of relating in the family become internalized within each person. These early patterns continue to influence one's understanding of how the world and other people work. Becoming increasingly aware of how these patterns operate in current relationships helps to facilitate the process of change.

Family systems theory identifies the way that families and groups assign roles and functions to particular members, helping us see what roles we take on at different stages of life and in different settings.

Recognizing how aspects of one's self have been formed by past experience, shaped by the environment, and may have been necessary for survival, people gain more freedom and often greater compassion for one's self. This awareness of how the past influences the present is often the first step in changing patterns that no longer support the life one desires today.

Jungian and Archetypal Theory:

The Jungian and Archetypal schools explore the way that images inform our understanding and experience of ourselves and the world. This includes a rich tradition of work with dreams. The Jungian and post-Jungian traditions also value the logic and play of images in memory, reverie, phantasy, myth and story, in daily events, and in the media.

The Jungian orientation respects the self-healing capacity of each individual, noting how this impulse arises spontaneously from the unconscious for people across time and culture. It understands the creative process to be a natural part of being human and is sensitive to creativity as a healing force in periods of illness and psychic pain, as well as an avenue of self expression.

Art Therapy, Play Therapy and Sand Tray Therapy

Non-verbal modes of self expression can be essential avenues of accessing one's story and psychological resources. Art therapy, play therapy and sand tray work all offer non-verbal ways to explore and express personal experience.