Services

I offer psychotherapy to individual adults of all ages. My psychoanalytic approach recognizes the impact of the past in shaping our present lives. This psychotherapy has at its core the relationship between therapist and client; it is within the context of a safe and reliable relationship, which has proven trustworthy over time, that lasting change can occur. Emotional damage that has been experienced in earlier relationships needs to be healed in a relationship with a therapist who offers a new opportunity for you to give voice to painful feelings which may have never been recognized or allowed expression.

When I meet with you for an initial assessment, I will be interested in hearing about the problems with which you are struggling. Together we will formulate at least an initial understanding of what the main issues seem to be, and I will make some suggestions about what treatment is most likely to be of help. You may be seeking therapy because you find yourself repeating past maladaptive or self destructive behaviors, the origins of which often lie outside conscious awareness. For this reason, it is difficult to discover and change them on your own. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy offers the opportunity to deeply explore the origins of whatever difficulties in your life are most distressing, and typically involves meeting between one and three times a week. I also offer psychoanalysis, using the same basic therapeutic approach but with more frequent meetings, usually three to five times a week. However, the problems you bring to therapy may be amenable to a more direct and problem-solving approach, resulting in a shorter term therapy.

I am skilled in the treatment of adult survivors of childhood trauma and abuse. Because of many years of experience working with those who have struggled to build their lives around a painful and shameful core of emotions, often hidden to all including themselves, I have developed ways to identify and speak to these often disavowed feelings. Our work together helps these survivors to understand and communicate with those parts of themselves that hold painful memories of the abuse and associated thoughts and feelings, so that these can be brought into greater awareness, out from the shadows.

Other interests and areas of expertise include disordered eating and a troubled relationship with food and the body. Among those with eating problems, I work most frequently with compulsive overeating and bulimia. In addition to exploring the psychological dynamics, I assist the client in recognizing the influence of the culture of thinness in our society that dangles in front of people the goal of perfection. The search for what is unattainable causes many to despair of ever being good enough, when that is equated with attaining a good enough body. Anxiety and depression are almost ubiquitous in our population, to some degree or another, and are often presenting problems. As with disordered eating issues, I work with you to understand the meaning of your symptoms and develop treatment goals and strategies to alleviate the distress.

For information about my fees and how to reach me, please go to the Contact Me page.