What's My Approach to Therapy?
We exist in relationship. I do not believe in isolated healing, as much as it has been popularized in the self-help movement.
Successful, integrated humans have always talked, shared, laughed together, cried together, raged together, and healed together.
The lack of a genuine, unflinching mirror of an emotionally intimate connection with another human being does damage far beyond any that can be seen by the naked eye.
STOP SCROLLING looking for connection, it's not there.
STOP SWIPING looking for loving acceptance, it's not there.
Where this connection can be found is in the loving holding exemplified in the progressive growth of emotional intimacy that naturally occurs in the therapeutic relationship.
I'm not afraid of your feelings or your past.
They are not a barrier to our shared connection, and to your healing.
Together we can embark on a journey that picks you up where you are now, in a state of quiet desperation, unsure which way to turn, and deliver you to a place in the not too distant future where you can experience being the best you that you have ever been, where you can begin to live the life that right now seems like wishful thinking, where your relationships, with yourself and with others, can be based on deep communication and connection rather than misunderstandings, resentments, and frustration.
I'm here to help, and I have the ability to help you change your life. But I can't help you if you don't reach out. Make a decision today that your future self will thank you for.
My Practice & Services
I work with a variety of clients from many different backgrounds. I have a lot of trust that the right people find their way to me at the right time, the people I can really help, and make a difference in their lives. That being said, in recent years I have found myself specializing in working with men of all ages who are struggling with being a man in today's society, whether that is showing up as mid-life crisis, dating issues, relationship struggles, parenting challenges, or anything else that is hurting in the heart of the man in front of me.
I also work a lot with couples, and really enjoy the challenge of helping partners who are struggling to reconnect with the passion and closeness that brought them together in the first place. I have a proven track record of helping couples who have arrived on the brink of separation and helping to revivify their relationship, their connection to themselves and to each other.
In addition to this, I also offer therapy intensives. This is a focused extended session or series of sessions. A lot of clients are increasingly finding this preferable to the steady flow of weekly therapy. Clients who have extremely busy schedules and can't find the time to commit to weekly therapy, or clients who have already done extensive weekly therapy and are clear on what their issues are, but need the opportunity to go deep quickly into the shadows of these issues, and finally rid themselves of the things that have been holding them back. Therapy Intensives are available for both individuals and couples. They are available in 3 hour or 6 hour blocks, or as a weekend intensive, encompassing 2 days of 6 hour blocks.
On the Fence About Going to Therapy?
I get it. To be more precise, I get it from both sides.
I've been the client who says to myself, 'ah, it's not that bad really. Sure, things could be better, but life's good overall. I don't think complaining about it every week is going to improve anything.' Of course, sometimes when I said that to myself, life WAS good, and perhaps I was just caught in overthinking things on that particular day. But more often than not, life actually was not good, and I was fooling myself to make myself feel better. Worse still, I was robbing myself of being able to experience genuine help.
I've also been on the other side of the equation of course. As a therapist, I've lost count of the number of times I've heard people say, 'I thought about reaching out to you a bunch of times, but I just never did. I WISH I'D REACHED OUT WHEN I FIRST THOUGHT OF IT.' My emphasis, not theirs. I wrote it like that because that's what it sounds like to me. The obviousness of it ringing out. The drama, pain and suffering they could have saved themselves over the course of months, sometimes years, if they had listened to that first intuitive thought. If you are in that position right now, learn from my mistakes, and the mistakes of so many others that I have sat with. Don't wait until the whole house has burned down, reach out when it's a small but worrying flame. Reach out today, and let's get started on your journey to being the very best you that you can be.
How My Own Struggles Made Me a Better Therapist
I am no stranger to personal struggles. it is not easy being a human being. Many of those people who are making it look easy sit down in my office and reveal the parts of themselves that they are not putting out there on social media. As the saying goes, 'don't compare your insides to other people's outsides.' I know for much of my 20s and early 30s, I presented as someone who had it all together when really I was falling apart on the inside. I was like a piece of rotten fruit, I looked ok on the outside, but if you just poked a bit I would collapse inwards because the insides were beginning to rot. I was immersed in alcoholism, immaturity, and a failure to relate effectively to other human beings. My journey out of that quagmire involved seeking help, accepting that I couldn't do it all by myself, nor was I supposed to. I had to confront how lost I was, and begin to heal. All of this informs my ability to sit with those who are in some of the same places of suffering today. However dark it feels on the inside, there is nothing you can say that I haven't heard before, there is nothing about your darkness that will scare me away. I know what it feels like to feel completely lost and hopeless. I didn't learn it from a textbook or a grad school class, I learned it from living it, surviving it, and coming out the other side, accepting the help that was available, and healing the parts of myself that had been so damaged for so long. I know what it feels like to feel the way you feel today, but I also don't feel that way anymore. I have found the way out, and I can show you how to do the same.
