Clinicians who offer sliding scale payment structures may offer lower or reduced fees based on an individual's ability to pay. Please contact this clinician for more details regarding their fees or sliding scale policy.My Approach to Helping
In my practice, I work with adults, defined as approximately age 20 and older. I work with individual clients, with couples, and with groups. In group therapy, the clients are almost always in individual therapy as well, with me, with my co-therapist, or with another therapist who has referred the client to the group.
I work with clients presenting a variety of issues, including:
*Depression Relationship Issues *Life Transitions
*Anxiety *Addictive Behaviors *GLBT Issues
*Anger *Grief and Loss *Sense of Self/Self-Esteem
*Men's Issues *Trauma and PTSD *Partners of Abuse Survivors
*Adult Children of Alcoholic/Dysfunctional/Abuse Families
*Couples Issues, including Re-Marriage, Extramarital Relationships, and Step-Families
I have had experience working with diverse groups of people. I have been a consulting psychologist to an orthodox yeshiva, I have worked with Catholic seminarians, I have taught and supervised trainees in a largely Catholic Pastoral Counseling program, and I have taken numerous workshops in working with Gay, Bi, and Lesbian, and Questioning clients. In addition, I have been involved in Multicultural work since 2001, and seek to keep an open mind and continuously question my assumptions about people whose lives are different from mine.
I believe that psychotherapy is an interactive process that calls for both the client and the therapist to be as fully involved as possible. Therefore, I participate actively with my patients, sharing my thoughts, impressions, and reactions to what we are talking about. I believe that people can change even long-standing patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior if THEY participate actively. My job is to create a space where clients can be curious and learn about the ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that they bring to their lives, and about how these ways work for them and against them. I create this space by bringing both my professional training and understanding and my human compassion, empathy, and respect.
In my practice, I typically meet with people once a week; if there is a need for additional support, or if we decide together that more intense work is called for, meeting twice a week can be very useful. Even meeting once a week allows clients to develop enough comfort with me and with therapy for our work to be effective and helpful.
Regarding my theoretical grounding, I have intensive training in Psychodynamic, Cognitive-Behavioral, Gestalt, and Existential therapeutic approaches, and I draw from each of these as the client's situation, needs, and goals call for. Some therapists subscribe to and identify with one school of thought and apply that way of thinking and working to every client. I first work to understand each client's particular issues, needs, and style of thinking and feeling. THEN, I use the approach and methods that I believe would be most useful to that patient, and remain open to using whatever else might work based on what develops. Therefore, my orientation is eclectic, and my methods are determined by the client's personality and needs.