About

I believe we all try our best to navigate the stresses, strains and occasional heartbreaks of everyday life. But, at times, we need and benefit from professional assistance and intervention. In our work together, you will discover increased self-awareness, creative ways of reflecting on troubling patterns, repetitive thoughts and feelings, and identify sources of personal agency that contribute to your overall well-being. 

I think of therapy as a collaborative enterprise focused on how you arrived at who you are today (i.e., exploring your past) and who you would like to become in the future. I take a keen interest in your story, your culture, your personhood. Thus, therapy is most powerfully conducted when it is based on a careful understanding of all of who you are—your dreams, hopes, wishes, sorrows, losses, and patterns of relating to yourself and others. Additionally, I regard our relationship, our initial “fit” and its evolution, as a crucial component of effective therapy. Therapy works in the context of a trusting and reliable relationship. 

I am a clinical psychologist with over 15 years of experience working primarily with older adolescents, adults and couples in university based counseling centers and private practice. I have extensive experience working with common mental health problems—general anxiety and panic, depression, relationship issues, trauma, family conflict, parenting issues, low self-esteem, social anxiety, self-doubt, and shame. I participated in and produced scholarship related to childhood trauma, attachment, and masculinity issues.  

I am also a Psychoanalytic Candidate, meaning I am being trained in Contemporary Psychoanalysis. While there are many stereotypes of psychoanalysis that portray a remote therapist as a “blank screen,” contemporary psychoanalysis is different. It involves an engaged therapist and an engaged client who work collaboratively and in-depth in a way that is emotionally alive. Psychoanalysis can be helpfully thought of as a more intensive psychotherapeutic engagement that can involve increased frequency—that is, sessions are scheduled more than one time per week— depending on the client’s motivation and interest. The reason for this more intensive involvement is that it supports exploration of the unconscious dimensions of your experience—the attachment patterns, personality dispositions, and the necessary but often outmoded defensive responses we all have that keep us stuck in the relationship we have with ourselves and others.  

In addition to my individual practice, I also supervise Psychological Associates who bring additional specialty areas that may address your particular therapeutic needs.