Counseling Approach

Clients come to me for short-term counseling and longer-term psychotherapy.  Sometimes after resolving the issue that brought someone into therapy, one chooses to work on deeper issues.  I often joke that "clients come to me with emotional or relationship difficulties and wind up leaving starting their own businesses or following their wildest dreams."

My approach is collaborative and interactive.  My experience and training gives me many techniques to draw upon to help solve the problems and explore the issues that my clients bring to their therapy sessions.  I believe in wholeness and integration.

The basic model that I use is psychodynamic therapy--we explore the dynamics of “what’s really going on” beneath the surface, the unconscious, the meaning of one’s life--to become conscious, to change, to have better relationships.  If we are to work together, you will begin by feeling safe with me and experience the unconditional regard that I have for you, and then you can begin to heal, feel empowered, gain and practice insight, and get everything that you really want from life.  People come into psychodynamic therapy for all the usual reasons, whether specific, or something as vague as simply feeling “hollow inside.”  This therapy aims to address the presenting problem, but differs from other approaches, by seeing the immediate situation in a broader, deeper context — a reflection of the patterns and forces that have been operating throughout a person’s life.

Professional Background

I was trained as a social worker at Yeshiva University, New York City.  As a social work  student,   I began to understand clients as a whole—bio-psycho-social-spiritual—and in the context of their environments — families, communities and other systems.  The approach at this college was humanistic and eclectic.  As a social worker, the primary intervention is the professional relationship.  I graduated and began working professionally in 1993.

I started my professional work in the alcohol and drug recovery field, and became a trauma specialist, working  with those who  were  experiencing  unresolved  sexual  and physical  abuse.  I also treated codependence, sexual addiction, compulsive debting and spending, and eating disorders.  The theoretical framework from which I worked in addictions recovery was cognitive-behavioral, and the primary modality group work, with family systems work and 12-Step support.  In addictions recovery, I have helped clients develop spiritualities, including meditation techniques, of their own choosing.  In trauma recovery, I helped clients feel safe, taught skills for expression, gave witness to their story, helped clients gain power over their bodies and their sexuality, and connect with supportive others.

I trained in Gestalt therapy, which is interactive and expressive, does “parts” work and stays in the "here and now" of the therapeutic relationship.  I also studied Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) which taught me good techniques for short-term solution-based therapy.  I studied Ericksonian Hypnosis, and often use visualization and metaphors in my work.

I have trained in various body and energy work, including yoga, Bio-Energetics, Holotropic Breathwork, Zero Balancing, auricular acupuncture, and the Feldenkrais Method.  I have studied Focusing, which is based in a “felt sense” and metaphors, and Hakomi, based in mindfulness meditation and a body-centered approach to the unconscious, and to what one truly needs and the beliefs that prevent us from satisfying these.

I have read and studied a good deal of Carl G. Jung and his followers, which has helped me understand the psyche, the unconscious, the personality, and help my clients achieve individuation—to become their unique selves, with their own vocations—within the context of the collective, and transpersonal and transhistorical patterns. I work with dreams, and enjoy talking about symbols, meaning, myth, creativity and the transcendent.  I encourage the creative and expressive arts with clients, particularly helping clients in creating mandalas for wholeness and integration.

Before I began working full-time in private practice in 2005, I worked for three years at Whitman-Walker Clinic as the Program Director of an HIV prevention program for gay men.  I implemented harm-reduction/staged change and community-level interventions.

In the past year couple of years, I have been training in Emotion Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT), a model which helps couples achieve safe attachment so that they can get out of their cycles of distress to share deeper, often unnamed emotions with each other, and thus be brought into deeper intimacy.  Research shows this model to be the most effective couples therapy available today.  This model using attachment has my work with individuals as well.

In all, I have worked in helping clients clear unproductive behaviors, and achieve peace, joy, self-love, meaning, healthy relationships and their deepest ambitions.

Payment Policies and Insurance

I am not currently on any insurance panels.  If you have insurance with out of network benefits, I will provide a monthly statement that you can use for reimbursement.  Insurance companies often reimburse 40% - 80% of my fee, after a yearly deductible is met, with a limit of sessions per calendar year.  Check with your provider about your coverage.

Availability - Monday through Fridays:  morning, afternoon and evening hours are possibly available.  I also offer some Saturday afternoons, primarily for couples.

Contact information - If you would like an initial appointment to explore our working together, call me at 202-714-1811

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