My Approach to Helping

My approach begins with conversation that can build rapport and trust with the individual or couple so that we can feel more comfortable talking together about personal matters. I am curious to find out what specifically the person or couple came to therapy for? What are they looking to deal with or change in themselves or their relationship? We discuss the various concerns or painful circumstances that brought them to therapy and formulate some individual/couple's goals that are representative of the issues, and are achievable and measurable.

My therapeutic approach involves a psychodynamic approach, that sets out to understand the problem and its origins. I am particularly interested in accessing the individual's/couples habitual ways of thinking and feeling about their problems and patterns, and the strategies they have used to deal with them. This provides an understanding of how they have come to be where they are, an assessment of what has and has not worked. We can then develop fresh strategies to undo the 'negative habit pattern' and motivate the person/couple to develop a more skillful means of relating to themselves and communicating with loved ones. The therapy begins to help the individual/couple develop the emotional courage and 'know how' for resolving difficulties and conflicts with more emotional resilience and intelligence.

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

I have worked for over 25 years in private practice with individuals and couples My areas of focus have been Couples, and Male Psychology.
Being in a couples relationship is the most challenging psychological work we do; extremely complex and challenging to combine friendship and sexuality between a man and a woman (or any two consulting adults), and keeping it emotionally close and alive ain't easy, but so worth learning how to do.
Men's Psychology has always interested me, because I am a man and have since reaching my 20's been interested in what other men experienced -- their childhood wounds and cultural conditioning, struggles maintaining intimacy with the women in their lives, and their relationship to meaningful work and money. I like helping men confront their areas of concern or struggle in their work or love life, and guide them in developing the skills and emotional courage to face and resolve relationship difficulties and work issues.