Individual Psychotherapy for adults and older adults

Fit is the most important element of successful therapy. Regardless of what your concern is (and I work with a wide variety of issues), how we come together with the shared intention of your healing is what matters most. Somatic, relational, transpersonal therapy is a bit different than the more traditional or popular CBT styles.

Perhaps you have tried therapy before unsuccessfully or wanted more than someone just quietly listening. Maybe you cognitively understand what the issue is but still feel stuck. My active style engages you on the level of thought like all talk therapy, but also brings in awareness of what's happening here & now in terms of body sensations, emotions, parts of self, as well as between us. This lays the groundwork for a different experience.

All pathology is a normal human trait taken to an extreme. Diagnostic labels can be helpful to convey a cluster of symptoms using shorthand, but real people rarely fit neatly into the silos constructed by the medical field. The disease model is dying. Psychology originally stemmed from a medical model, but contemporary psychology embraces the concept of self-actualization. This is the idea that our innate desire is to become the best version of ourself. Much like we can provide water and fertilizer to help a plant grow, a therapist nurtures and supports the client’s own growth process without force or control.

Many people without any diagnosis or form of mental illness benefit from the support of a therapist. It’s like having a friend that has no bias, agenda, or their own baggage getting in the way of what you need moment to moment. It’s like hiring a private coach to take your sport to Olympic level. Hiring that professional doesn’t mean that something's wrong with you. It means that you care about yourself and want to give yourself the resources to succeed as much as possible.

Therapy isn't a peptalk. A good therapist won't tell you what you "should" do. The difference between a friend and a trained professional is that a licensed therapist can carefully set their own stuff aside in order to meet you with pure nonjudgmental curiosity. In the absence of the other person's stuff to focus on or blame, a mirror appears in which you can finally see yourself with less of a biased filter. When we drop the judgment and the story, it's easier to accurately see what your own part is. See where you have a choice, and how those choices impact your experience. When this becomes more apparent, change happens.

I see my clients reacting in normal human ways to adverse circumstances. This is why I prefer the term client as opposed to patient. As Gábor Máté says, our behavior makes sense within the context.

A therapist is an expert, not an authority. This places the therapist and client on equal footing without the power dynamics of hierarchy. I won’t tell you what to do. I will support you so that you can navigate your own decisions and come to your own conclusions. When appropriate, I will model healthy behavior using examples.

Yes, we will talk about your past, but we will always bring it back to what you are feeling and sensing in the here and now. We acknowledge the story and then come back to your experience. When you ask why, I will ask what. What happens inside you? What does it feel like in your body?

At its highest levels, the therapy process becomes nearly indistinguishable from a spiritual process. In order to truly heal, one must address psychological patterns such as character structures, negative core beliefs, and unconscious or shadow parts as well as engage the larger resource of the transpersonal.

Psychedelic-assisted therapy can accelerate psychotherapeutic work. Though I do not provide this service directly, I can help you prepare for a psychedelic experience to get the most out of it, and assist in deepening your integration process so that you carry those insights back into your daily life even after the freshness fades.

I could list all of the usual suspects here...anxiety, depression, addiction, people pleasing...but for many of these common complaints, they often trace back to the same root cause: trauma. Whether you struggle with alcohol and drugs to manage emotional pain, or rely on behaviors such as staying busy at work or controlling your diet or home environment, the addictive process requires the same recovery work regardless of the various manifestations it can take on the surface.

I support individuals struggling in their relationships, whether to a partner, family member(s), friends, or colleagues. I bring my expertise from couples work in to help you as an individual in relationship with others.