Helping People Find Therapists & Advocating for Ethical and Healthy Therapy & Marriage Counseling Practices

My Approach to Helping

I offer a safe place for people to face their issues, be it sex addiction, binge drinking, relationship conflict, or any other issue too challenging to deal with on one's own.

What the therapist offers to be helpful is hard to acquire outside the therapy situation: unalduterated interest in the client's point of view and and well-being (unadulterated by personal interests, agendas, etc.), emotional attunement, patience (no time table or agenda), acceptance (no interest in fostering conformity, upholding social norms, not an arm of the law or any particular morality, etc.), insight into how the past continues to influence the present, explication of facets of the present predicament, an ally in the struggle with difficult thoughts and painful feelings and self-harming tendencies who does not have a vested interest in the outcome of the struggle, a listener and responder who facilitates self-knowledge and self-initiated problem-solving, the ability to listen long enough and astutely enough to connect the dots and put the pieces together, someone who can be trusted, a benign and wise presence.

My approach aims at liberation from the enduring, negative legacy of the formative past (the growing up years of life).

My target clientele is people who have come to realize that despite their efforts in the past and in the present, including former periods of individual therapy or treatment, some of the traits they developed during the course of growing up in order to cope/adapt with circumstances that prevailed at that time have carried over and persisted into adulthood, to the detriment of adult living.

Modifying such traits is easier said than done, an unhappy fact that people who have previously been in therapy or treatment no doubt realize only too well. Modification requires a conjunction of motivation and effort on the part of the client and a patient, insightful way of listening and interacting on the part of the therapist.

The therapist cannot really do much to instill desire and determination to achieve positive change, but his patience, understanding, insight, and manner of "being with" can support and inspire hope, effort, and persistence.

What is important therapeutically is a blend of insight, alterations in thinking, and feeling shifts that only comes about in a certain kind of therapeutic relationship. I have worked for decades to refine my skills in what is therapeutically important.

I am a mature, compassionate, and skilled psychotherapist ready to help.

 

More Info About My Practice

Since graduating from the University of Chicago, I have continued to focus on writing about important issues in the field of psychology and have posted my publications on my website.

 

Specific Issue(s) I'm Skilled at Helping With

For the past nine years I have acquired a great deal of experience working with and coming to understand varieties of addiction: sex, drugs, food, activities (see writings on my blog,on my website,www.davidhjacobsphd.com).

Addictions grow out of the emotional wounds sustained during the course of growing up and correlated ways of coping and being. One of the ways I have come to see addictions is as an effort to be self-sufficient, that is not rely on others for comfort, soothing, and so on. In the area of sex addiction there may be a great deal of contact with others for pleasure, but the contact is one dimensional and non-intimate, even impersonal. People who seek treatment for addictions, in my experience, have encountered some sort of personal and interpersonal crisis that has precipitated a need for personal change, although there may be and usually is very mixed feelings about the need for change. It is important for the therapist to understand and accept this as well as be well acquainted with what drives addiction and the pitfalls on the road to recovery.

Services I Provide

• Individual Therapy & Counseling
• Marriage, Couples, or Relationship Counseling
• Family Therapy
• Consultation
• Clinical Supervision

Ages I Work With

• Adults

Languages I Speak

• English

Groups I Work With

Addiction (sex, food, alcohol, prescription/drug).

Therapy Approaches I Use

• Depth Therapy
• Existential Psychotherapy
• Humanistic Psychology
• Interpersonal Psychotherapy
• Narrative Therapy
• Non-Violent Communication
• Object Relations
• Person Centered / Rogerian
• Process Oriented Psychology
• Psychoanalysis / Modern Psychoanalysis
• Psychodynamic
• Relational Psychotherapy
• Relationship Enhancement Therapy
• Self Psychology
• Self Relations

Concerns & Issues I Help With

• Identity Issues
• Attachment
• Reproduction
• Abuse: Emotional, Physical, or Sexual
• Trauma
• Occupational & Academic Issues
• Addictions & Compulsions
• Life Changes
• Social Skills & Problems
• Health & Body
• Anxiety, Fear, & Stress
• Emotion Management
• Depression & Mood
• Family Problems
• Relationships & Marriage
• Self-Esteem & Confidence
• Spirituality
• Self-Harm & Suicide
• Sexuality