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

My Approach to Helping

I provide individual counseling and psychotherapy for adults who realize that current or recurrent problems are, finally, too much to endure alone. In my experience, it is the quality of the therapeutic relationship, more than anything else, that determines the outcome of therapy.

My approach is to provide a safe and trusting relationship within which clients can begin to listen to and care more for themselves, and then gradually to gain insight into recurring patterns of behavior. The primary focus of my work is self-understanding: to identify the conscious or unconscious thoughts and feelings that contribute to emotional distress.

I received a Ph. D. in counseling from the University of Southern California, and have been in private practice since 1972. I am also on the faculty of the Center for Object Relations in Seattle, teaching the theory and technique of psychotherapy.

 

More Info About My Practice

I am a preferred provider for the majority of insurance carriers in Washington State, including Regence Blue Shield, Premera Blue Cross, the Uniform Medical Plan, the Boeing HEalth Plan, and the University of Washington Health Plan.

 

My View on the Purpose of Psychotherapy

The purpose of psychotherapy is to help the client to become "mindful." To become "mindful" is to pay attention to one's thoughts and feelings knowing that they reveal an important truth about the internal landscape of one's life. In the face of forces or experiences too dangerous or intense to manage in one's life, the usual defense is to simply quit feeling or thinking about the offending experience. We lose touch with ourselves in the process, and often lose the support of those closest to us who do not understand our self-protective behavior. The process of psychotherapy involves the creation of a safe environment in which the therapists' thoughtful attention and deep listening becomes the model for the client to listen better to herself. This requires a relationship of deepening trust in which the therapist and the client listen together to the subtle and sometimes disguised cries for help which the client has learned to quiet or ignore. Ultimately, the goal of psychotherapy is freedom; freedom for the client to know their inner world of hopes and fears. And, knowledge; knowledge that they have the capacity to use the insight gained in their psychotherapy to design a life more fulfilling, more meaningful than they had ever imagined. The psychotherapist's continued and unswerving faith and belief in the process is one of the most powerful tools for the client to also believe that his (her) life can turn around and become whole.

 

How My Own Struggles Made Me a Better Therapist

The best training for being a therapist is to have one's own therapy. The academic preparation in graduate school is helpful to a limited extent. It at least acquaints the future therapist with existing models of the mind, and the various techniques for alleviating men designed to alleviate mental suffering. What it does not provide is the experience of being "in" therapy; what it feels like to confront the hidden feelings and conflicts of one's internal world, and how to cope with what one finds there. More to point: As a therapist one cannot hope to challenge or confront demons in the other that one has not faced one's self. That is not to say that the therapist must have worked through himself any and every diagnostic category in the Mental Health Manuel. It is to say that the therapists must have had deep and extensive internal work on whatever might be his (her) primary personality quirks or limitations so as to know, personally, what it feels like to take that journey as a client. Most importantly, the therapist must be prepared to absorb whatever pain, chaos, terror, and despair brought in by her client and contain it in the therapy setting. Invariably, a therapist who has had his or her own therapy will have experienced the sometimes overwhelming feeling of being lost, confused, anxious,depressed, despairing, and will not be intimidated by such feelings in the client when they appear.

Services I Provide

• Individual Therapy & Counseling

Ages I Work With

• Adults
• Elders

Languages I Speak

• English

Therapy Approaches I Use

• Object Relations
• Psychoanalysis / Modern Psychoanalysis
• Psychodynamic

Concerns & Issues I Help With

• Depression & Mood
• Self-Esteem & Confidence
• Social Skills & Problems
• Identity Issues
• Life Changes
• Anxiety, Fear, & Stress
• Emotion Management
• Spirituality