My Philosophy

Striving to achieve your full potential gives life purpose and meaning, and life’s difficulties can be opportunities to learn and grow toward that potential.  My goal is to help you learn from your struggles, better understand your difficulties, cope more effectively, improve your relationships, and to move your life in a positive direction.

I provide a warm and accepting therapeutic environment, with guidance and encouragement to examine yourself honestly and to make changes when necessary… in order to help you move toward your dreams of a satisfying and meaningful life.

I am especially interested in helping people who struggle with emotions related to medical problems, aging, end of life issues, caregiving, grief, depression, anxiety, relationship problems, and stress management.  I also believe that wellness and spirituality are an important part of health and healing.  I believe in the power of talk therapy to make a profound and positive difference in people’s lives, and to help them move towards their goals.

I see four key factors that make therapy helpful (below) and I draw on multiple theories to address each client’s unique issues (further below).

Four Factors Essential to Therapy

1. Therapeutic Relationship: First, having a supportive and trusting relationship with a counselor can be therapeutic in and of itself. Knowing that I won’t be judgmental, and that I accept you as you are, even while helping you work towards your goals, can be a new experience for people. This can be especially important for people who have been hurt in the past, who have difficulty trusting or feeling safe, and who have relationship issues.

2. Emotional Experiencing: Second, therapy offers an opportunity for emotional experiencing and processing. Research has shown this to be a powerful and useful experience. For some this comes naturally, and it’s comforting to have a place where they can safely process their emotions. But it is especially useful for people who tend to avoid their emotions (and therefore avoid dealing with their issues). Fear of emotions is an important obstacle to overcome, and learning to manage them is an important skill to learn.

3. Learning: Another crucial element of therapy is the opportunity it creates for learning. This may be the kind of learning that naturally comes out of reflecting on your life events, and suddenly having an insight. Or it may be more didactic, as in the case of coping skills, communication skills or any set of skills. It is especially important to learn about yourself by observing your emotions, thoughts and behavior patterns, or by reviewing past events that affect you to this day. Learning psychological principles about what is healthy versus unhealthy can also be helpful when applied to your specific situation.

4. Practicing New Behaviors: Lastly, therapy gives you the opportunity to practice new behaviors. Whether you practice them in session or between sessions, new behaviors are how you translate what you’ve learned into action. It’s easier said than done, and takes time and patience, but practicing healthy new behaviors can have a lasting influence on your life, emotions, and relationships. Of course, it’s up to you to decide what behaviors you want to change and how. Ultimately you are in charge of your own life, and only you can steer it in the direction where you want to go. Each time you practice a new behavior, you are taking a step towards your goal.

For more on how counseling helps, click here.

Theories, principles and techniques

I believe that most theoretical approaches to understanding people have something to offer.  Each theory adds another piece to the puzzle by offering useful insights, principles and techniques.  Integrating various theories gives me the flexibility to address a wide variety of concerns.  Each unique case calls for a unique combination of psychological theories, principles and techniques.

Here is a list of a few fundamental theories and approaches to therapy which I incorporate into treatment.

1. Cognitive: Cognitive theories focus on thinking, perception and understanding.  Our thoughts, interpretations, assumptions and beliefs often determine how we feel and react to situations.  I have often seen my clients struggle with issues which had their roots in mis-interpretations, mis-understandings, and tendencies to automatically interpret things in one way or another.  Through therapy, I hope to give you the opportunity to examine your thinking, check your assumptions and conclusions, challenge negative or distorted thinking patterns, and increase accurate and balanced thoughts, feelings and behaviors in your life.

2. Developmental: Developmental theories focus on growth, development and learning.  Freud started us off with his stages of psychosexual development, which were central in his development of psychoanalysis as a method for helping people.  Psychologists have continued to expand and deepen our understanding of development ever sine then.  We have examined development in numerous areas including: cognitive, social, personality, learning, career, and moral development.  I have found developmental theories very useful in helping me understand what motivates my clients’ behaviors and thoughts, and how their past experiences (especially childhood experiences) may be influencing the issues they are working on now.  Also, developmental psychology sheds light on parenting, life transitions, aging, relationship dynamics, career issues, and more.

3. Behavioral: Behaviorism focuses on how behavior is affected by conditioning and reinforcement.  Behavioral theories dominated psychology in the first half of the twentieth century.  Behaviorism has its limitations, but it can also be very practical and useful.  I have found behavioral techniques especially helpful when trying to change unhealthy behavior patterns (lifestyle modification, quitting tobacco or other substances), and for parenting (reducing temper tantrums, regaining control of children, increasing children’s positive behaviors).  I almost always use behavioral theories in conjunction with cognitive theories, as in “cognitive behavioral therapy” or CBT.  Behavior analysis, which focuses exclusively on behavior (rather than “the mind”) has become a specialty.

4. Humanist: The psychological theory of humanism developed in response to psychoanalysis and behaviorism, and emphasizes the positive and healthy aspects of human psychology.  It acknowledges that there is something unique about human beings that sets us apart from animals.  Contrary to philosophical humanism, it does not reject spirituality or theism, but rather breaks ranks with previous theories in acknolwedging spirituality as significant in human life.  Humanism focuses less on pathology and abnormal behavior, and emphasizes the basic goodness of human beings.  It focuses on questions of meaning, purpose, values, and intentions.  I incorporate principles of humanism when I work with spiritual concerns, death and dying, grief, self-actualization, issues of dignity, self-esteem, self-worth, depression, life goals, wellness, change, and growth, among others.  A few specific appraches to therapy related to humanism are solution focused therapy, strength based therapy, and person centered therapy.

5. Social Learning: Social learning theories, and social development theories, focus on learning that occurs within a social context.  Key ideas here are observation, attention, imitation, modeling (as in role models), expectations and consequences.  Social learning theory incorporates principles of behaviorism and cognitive therapy, and adds to them by emphasizing the fundamental role of relationships in human learning, decisions, morals, behaviors, etc.  It is also a type of developmental theory, in that it describes factors and processes involved in learning and growing.  The principles of social learning have been useful to me in understanding cultural differences, family patterns, lifestyles, coping styles, communication patterns, and the types of roles that a person assumes in their relationships.

In summary

As you might imagine, there are almost an infinite number of specific theories in psycholgy… almost as many as there are researchers and theorists.  The above theories give you a sampling of some of the most fundamental theories that I incorporate into my work.

For more about specialized training I have had in specific approaches to therapy, click here.

Mission and Vision

My mission is to support and enhance my clients’ personal growth, through helping them cope with life’s difficulties, improve their relationships, manage their symptoms, gain insight into their problems, and attain meaningful goals. My vision is to be part of a greater effort, by psychologists and other helping-professionals everywhere, to make this sort of support available whenever it is needed.

Values

I commit to these values to guide my decisions and behaviors:

Trust: Trust is essential to therapy. It is my highest priority to build therapeutic relationships in which my clients feel (and are) safe enough to be open and honest with themselves and with me.

Care: The care and compassion that I feel for my clients is not only a value, but also a gift, without which I could not do this work.  I am thankful for the opportunity to be invited into people’s lives, to share their joys and sorrows, and to help them move in a positive direction.

Integrity: I strive to employ the highest ethical standards, demonstrating honesty and fairness in every action that I take. I follow the ethics code of the American Psychological Association.

Respect: I have a deep respect for each client’s dignity, autonomy, life experiences, perspective and beliefs. My role is not to tell them what to do, but to support them in exploring life events and options, and to empower them in making their own best decisions. I strive to work within each person’s framework and worldview.

Health: I am committed to sharing psychology’s findings and principles of mental health, healthy relationships, healthy development, and healthy lifestyles. There is a wealth of information available, that can be of enormous benefit to anyone, and which can supplement other sources of guidance.

Excellence: It is important to me, to help you in such a way that it really makes a difference.  I strive to be as effective as possible by implementing principles and techniques which have been proven to work.  I make it a point to continue educating myself through reading, attending workshops and conferences, and through consulting when appropriate. In these ways I strive to offer excellence in my counseling services.