People generally come to see me if they are experiencing issues in relationships or struggling with depression, bipolar disorder or issues related to abandonment or intimacy. Sometimes relationship issues occur within a couple, but often the challenge is outside, like in dating or with family. Sometimes struggles with grief or a break-up is the catalyst for therapy. It takes courage to seek help regardless of the issue so I really respect you just for showing up!

I enjoy getting to know people and understanding their struggles. I'm warm and direct and work in a very relational way. Our relationship will be key to therapy working for you so it's important that you be able to get comfortable with me and I will do whatever I can to facilitate that. We will work as a team and get to understand what's hard or not working for you on a deep level. Success means building a sort of bridge between your unconscious and your conscious mind so you can understand repeated patterns and choices in your lives and become more able to create relationships and a life that works for you. Much of why we are who we are is rooted in relationships in our families of origin and so it makes sense that healing tends to happen in relationship too. That's what our work together will aim to do.

It's more than likely that we will do some laughing in our process but yes, there may be difficult emotions as well. Therapy will be a place where you are accepted and heard and where you can sort things out. I will ask you a lot of questions. I need to understand your family background and how you function in relationships and in your day to day in order to help you help yourself. I am almost impossible to shock so no need to worry about that. I have worked with people who have survived all sorts of trauma and with folks all over the sexual orientation and gender continuums.

I consider it an incredible privilege to do this work and I have been doing it for over 20 years now. Throughout my career, I have worked with both teenagers and adults and early on I specialized in teens. My early education was focused on family systems and that combined with the analytical relational and attachment theory I studied in depth later is the foundation of my understanding of people. I don't like to put people in boxes- no bipolar person or person with borderline personality disorder or grieving person or anyone else is the same. If you need a diagnosis for insurance purposes, I can give you one but it won't be the basis of how we work together. I don't apply formulas to people and I don't tend to say "techniquey" sounding things you can't imagine really saying to another person. You will get to know me; I'm not a blank slate.

I'm happy to offer free phone consultations so please email me or text me or call me and request that we set one up. When you come to the office, feel free to bring your dog if you have one who is house trained and makes you more comfortable. I'm a dog lover and my office is dog-friendly. I do not contract with insurance so people pay cash or check or pay online via Venmo or PayPal.