Therapist Profile

My Approach to Helping

I believe that people come to therapy because they are lacking serenity and peace of mind. They are in a state of being "upset" or out of equilibrium. They then can be diagnosed as having various disorders and "upset" is not one of them! Rather, they can be labeled as depressed, anxious, or other disorders, when in reality, there is a great overlap of these disorders and of their treatments, including medications, and the "labels" thus lose the person and the problems. I believe that looking at what situations in the person's life triggered the call for help, and what situations earlier in life contributed to the feeling of being overwhelmed or upset, are more likely to yield a pathway toward peace of mind than a "pidgeon-hole" of a diagnosis. Certainly, what statements the person makes to the self is important, but even deeper than that, we need to find out from whence those statements came earlier in life. Those introjected messages need to be worked on in earnest so that the "battle within" can be healed. I find this generally more effective than simply disputing the current thoughts. We also need to look at the existential issues the person is facing: feeling alone in the world, fear of survival, emptiness, meaninglessness in life, etc. There also also people who seem to have a "misfiring" in the brain, which leads to neurobiological disorders. These disorders include trichotillomania (hair pulling), skin-picking, and obsessive compulsive disorder. For these, I find behavior therapy is remarkably effective. For OCD, exposure and response prevention (ERP) almost always works, although it is in itself a stressful form of therapy. I have intensive training in treating OCD and trichotillomania and good success with both. One of my specialties is sexual addiction. While there are professionals who still dispute this disorder, it is quite common (3 percent), and it leads to severe losses: jobs and careers, marriages and relationships, and health. My approach is reinforcing the emotional resources the person already has, working through childhood negative beliefs, meeting needs of the person (through their own resources) which were not met in childhood, working through childhood neglect or abuse, and working with the 12 step model. I only see sex addicts who are committed to a 12-step group, such as Sexaholics Anonymous. Sex is not the issue. The issues are usually related to being unable to connect, early childhood deprivation, early boundary issues in the family and a pattern of addictions in the family (perhaps genetic). I also work with people with "money issues." I am not a financial planner but I work to help people figure out why they spend beyond their means and to help them control these impulses. As with other process addictions (i.e., addictions which do not have a substance), we look at childhood unmet needs and work to resolve them, and we work with mindfulness at the time of spending.