List of Services

Specializing In:

• Depression / Anxiety
• Releasing Relationship Blocks
• Couples Counseling
• Gay Bisexual Lesbian Trangendered Identity Issues
• Sexual Identity Issues
• Career / Finance Issues
• Drug / Alcohol Addiction
• Sex & Love Addiction
• Spirituality
• Group Therapy

Depression / Anxiety

Depression is probably the most common problem people seek help with. It is often related to distorted thought patterns and problems with accepting your feelings, especially your anger. Repression of anger is at the root of most depression. As a result of family dysfunction you may have distorted beliefs around anger such as: “Anger is dangerous so I shouldn’t show it”. “People won’t love me if I show anger”. If you are explosive with anger you might hold a distorted belief that, “Rage makes me powerful.” When you hold these kinds of beliefs you are essentially unsafe with the emotion of anger and can be prone to depression. Psychotherapy can help to both dismantle your distorted beliefs and learn to be safe with all your feelings.
In learning self-acceptance your depression can be lifted and replaced with self-confidence.

Anxiety is often related to an unconscious fear that, “Something bad is going to happen to me”. If you are from a family that was unavailable or even hostile you may project that experience onto the world and believe that the world is unsupportive or even hostile. We again would need to dismantle the distorted beliefs you hold about your sense of safety and provide a place where you can learn to trust yourself and others. You will learn to live in present time and not in the future. You will also learn that the world is an essentially safe place and that you can live in trust, not fear.

Releasing Relationship Blocks

Many people find creating intimate, long term relationships a challenge. For some this is prevalent only with regards to romantic relationships. Others have problems forming close bonds with both friends and lovers. We will examine your beliefs around relationships and how those beliefs get translated into behaviors that may be preventing you from getting the love and support you need. We will then work at healing the unconscious wounds that resulted in the dysfunctional beliefs and behaviors. In addition you will have goals to accomplish that will put the new way of relating into practical steps to achieve the social support and / or partnership you are craving.

Couples Counseling

Imago dialoging is one of the most effective forms of couples therapy known to psychotherapists today. It was coined by Harville Hendrix, who wrote the best selling book, “Getting The Love That You Want”. I use Imago dialoguing to help couples do the character work of giving up defenses and to heal past trauma that is resulting in things like power struggles and combativeness in the way they relate to each other. Couples are often caught in a dysfunctional kind of communication style that revolves around a desire to prove who’s right and who’s wrong. This is replaced with a way of communicating that results in valuing and understanding each other’s experience. Imago dialoguing helps the couple to experience each other in a safe, loving exchange and truly get the love that they want.

Gay Bisexual Lesbian Trangendered Identity Issues

If you are part of the GBLT (Gay Bisexual Lesbian and Transgender) population, you are likely to carry challenges from being unsupported and even attacked when you were growing up. You may have been held back in your ability to succeed due to the lack of role models and the shaming you experienced. You may be struggling with depression, a sense of hopelessness about being loved or valued, addictions, and difficulty achieving your goals with regards to career and relationship. In being gay myself, I have worked extensively with others from the GBLT community. I offer a safe, supportive environment in which to both work through your early developmental issues and achieve goals.

Sexual Identity Issues

It is not uncommon for people to be conflicted about their sexuality. When we carry unconscious shame about who we are, it can often become expressed as a sexual issue. We may have difficulty having a fulfilling, active sex life with our partner. We may be confused about our homosexual feelings. We may have attractions to both sexes but have difficulty accepting and negotiating our attractions. We might find that we participate in sex in an objectified, non-intimate manner that leaves us feeling more lonely than loved. We may prefer sexual practices that are unusual and that we feel are “wrong”. The unconscious is always seeking acceptance and wholeness. Often sexual issues are an expression of how we are seeking to fulfill parts of ourselves that have been denied, unfulfilled, or abused. In uncovering the issues surrounding your sexuality and moving toward deeper acceptance of the self, sexuality can become a place of fulfillment, passion, intimacy, and self-growth.

Career / Finance Issues

Career and finance issues are usually related to self value issues. We are often convinced that we should enter unfulfilling, dead end jobs, because we were told we needed to be “safe”. In turn, we may also end up in jobs that do not pay well. In the therapeutic process you will learn to value your self in a way that allows work and financial success to be a natural out picturing of that self value. We will look at your beliefs around money and how you are currently handling your finances. We will set concrete goals with week to week steps to pursue work that is both fulfilling and prosperous.

Drug / Alcohol Addiction

Drug and alcohol addiction are forms of medicating a deep sense of unworthiness as a result of past trauma. You may also feel cut off from loving relationships and social support. Psychotherapy can help you to understand and heal these past traumas, and develop the support you need. Depending on your circumstance it may be necessary to work in conjunction with the Alcoholics Anonymous program. While you may not be ready to enter a twelve step program at this time, any psychotherapist who is truly competent will eventually advise you to consider entering one if you are dealing with an alcohol or chemical dependency.

Sex & Love Addiction

Sex and Love Addiction are essentially intimacy issues and are usually a result of abuse or rejection in childhood. Those events result in a deep wound that can feel like a persistent sense of self-loathing, isolation, and loneliness.

If you are suffering from sex addiction you may use sex as a way of seeking validation and medicate your emotional pain.
If you also suffer from Love Addiction you may be someone who becomes obsessed with another individual who is usually an “Avoidant Addict” (i.e. someone who avoids relationship). You will unconsciously pursue that person in an effort to get the acceptance you did not get from one or both of your parents. The problem being that you are unconsciously pursuing someone who is unable to love you, just as your parent was unable to love you.

Therapy can help to repair the early trauma that results in this self-defeating cycle by give you the acceptance that you did not receive.

It is often helpful to enter a twelve step program in addition to therapy for these types of problems. The ones most commonly entered are: Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, or Sexual Compulsives Anonymous. Two of the preeminent books on these problems are: “Out of the Shadows”, by Patrick Carnes, and “Facing Love Addiction”, by Pia Melody.

Spirituality

Carl Jung was the first psychotherapist to introduce the idea of spiritual reality as a part of the psychotherapy process. His concept of the collective unconscious (that we all share one consciousness), has been widely accepted by many in the field of psychology as one of the most important teachings of our time. If in the context of your therapy you want to discuss your spiritual beliefs in a supportive, understanding environment, I am versed in many schools of eastern and western spiritual philosophies. I am schooled in different forms of mediation, some which may assist you in your therapy. Whether you are an atheist, agnostic, religious, or just interested in spiritual thought, I am open to your interests but never ask you to accept any spiritual beliefs. I am not affiliated with any religion but respect those who are.

Group Therapy

Group therapy is available if you are interested in using it to assist your individual treatment. It is normally important for you to participate in individual therapy before entering a group. Groups are psychodynamic in nature. From a psychodynamic perspective, the group is thought to represent the family to the unconscious. In this way we “give your unconscious a second chance” by allowing you to experience a functional group (read “family”) system. This can be optimal in assisting you if you are from an especially dysfunctional family, which unfortunately most of us are.