My Approach

I utilize techniques from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Modern Pyschoanalysis when working with you. If we work together, your therapy will be directed at working out the unconscious conflicts that are preventing you from achieving your goals.  

A Little About

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Therapy is primarily the therapy of understanding cognitions, or thought patterns. In doing so we gain insight into how they impact your mood and behavior. We also evaluate how these thought patterns emanate from the core beliefs about the self (i.e. the “cognitive schemata”). We then go about correcting the distorted thought patterns. The idea being that when we change our thinking, we change our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. In the process our mood becomes stabilized, the level we function at in relationships increases, and our ability to achieve goals improves.  

Behavioral Therapy is essentially what it sounds like. We set concrete behavioral goals for you to achieve between sessions. These agreements could be such things as:  submiting three resumes to potential employers, asking someone on a date, dealing with credit card debt, joining a gym, etc.  Whatever is in keeping with your therapeutic goals will be translated into a plan of action.  

This is a very simplistic “Readers Digest” version of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. For a more in-depth understanding you may want to check out two books:

Felling Good, by David Burns.

OR:

How To Stubbornly Refuse To Make Yourself Miserable About Anything, Yes Anything, by Albert Ellis.

A Little About

Modern Psychoanalysis

Modern Psychoanalysis has its foundation in the idea of working through transference and resistance within the therapeutic relationship. A transference is what you carry over from your family of origin and project on to your adult life. You may fear that you will be shamed or rejected if you talk about anger.  This could be due to the shaming or abusive nature of your family. As a result, when you are angry, you may habitually repress the anger (the main cause of depression). This unconscious pattern of repressing anger would be one example of what we mean by resistance (one is literally resisting feeling the anger). A corrective emotional experience in therapy would be to provide you with a person (i.e. the therapist) to talk about and accept your anger within a supportive environment.   

For a more thorough understanding of how Modern Psychoanalysis works, check out the book:

The New Psychoanalysis, by Phyllis W. Meadow