Specialties
- Anxiety (fear and anger)
- Depression (sadness, loss and grief)
- Eating Disorders / Body Image Issues
- Parenting Guidance
- Women’s Reproductive Issues
- Mindfulness Meditation
- Individuals
- Couples
- Adolescents
- Adolescents with Asperger’s Syndrome
- Cancer Survivors
- Trauma and Stress
INDIVIDUAL THERAPY
I have over 32 years of experience providing therapy to individuals, and what is most compelling to me is that despite each individual’s desire to deal with their own distress, most underlying depression and anxiety have interpersonal components. I am in a unique position to work with you using relational insight and practical dialogue to work through your known and sometimes unknown, but felt bodily and emotional issues.
Many deep-seated problems stem from early times in our lives, when we were children living with our parents. These early relationships often are the key to understanding the derivation of your problems and our work is to acknowledge and separate yourself from the child inside of you who still believes that her young way of thinking continues to be operable even as an adult, in the present.
As we begin to explore your feelings, we can work to allay old doubts and anxieties for you to achieve the confidence you need for a healthier, happier and more productive life.
MARITAL THERAPY
Quite often, it’s the “Opposites Attract” notion that ends up causing many couples to resent one another’s dissimilarities. I work with couples to help each member feel known and supported by the other. Our world can be quite challenging, between work, children, extended family obligations, and other stressors, it can be difficult to focus on the marriage and the sexual relationship that can often become the unspoken elephant in the room. I work with couples to develop and sustain a level of intimacy that will enrich their relationships and their lives.
There are times as well, when the distance the develops within the couple is too great to bridge, and in that case, I can also help the couple to separate as amicably as possible.
PARENTING
Parenting is one of the most challenging responsibilities in our lives, and yet there’s no real training in it as there exists in preparing for a career or even learning to drive! We are often guided by our own childhood experiences and the ways we were parented ourselves, when we envision raising our children. But without an awareness of how stress, anger or the feeling of being overwhelmed affect us, we fall into the same patterns as of our parents’.
How often have you heard yourself bemoaning that you’re behaving exactly like your mother or father did—which was exactly the opposite of how you hoped to see yourself parent your own child? Your children’s behaviors that are the most disruptive are the ones most often reflective of misguided ways in which you, yourself, were parented.
In parenting guidance work, we focus on learning to identify familiar triggers that jettison you back into old ways of thinking and behaving. I will help you steer clear of old hurts and help formulate ways to give you and your child the most meaningful and connected relationship possible.
EATING DISORDERS / BODY IMAGE ISSUES
Eating disorders run the gamut of restrictive eating, bingeing, purging and overeating. They, however, are not just about eating. They have serious underpinnings within the family relationships, and often the person suffering with ED is the only one who recognizes the problems, but yet cannot speak to it, for fear of destabilizing the family. Consequently, the “knowledge” she has is demonstrated through the need to control her food intake and output. And ironically, the family colludes in the belief that the solution is for the patient to join the family in eating “normally” again.
Shame is another serious hallmark of eating disorders, even when the ED seems to be flaunted in the family’s face. It’s as if the individual has no shame in what she eats, doesn’t eat, or throws up. But in her mind, the act of putting food in her body or expelling it is one of deep shame as the family looks on—as if the entire disorder is solely the fault of the patient.
The need to be able to control the food that goes in her body is the way she maintains her independence from the family. It’s vital that the control exhibited over food be allowed to be expressed verbally and supported by the family. Family therapy is often a necessary component, from time to time, of each patients’ therapy.
MINDFUL MEDITATION
The present is the only reality we have. Living in the moment is one of the best ways to counteract the pain and stress that we carry with us from old wounds and future anxiety. Focusing on these moments of present is one of the ways, I believe, we can take control of our lives, alleviate stress and reflect on ways to empower ourselves. When we have control, we usher in peace. We can live in the present moment of peace without fear of what was or anxiety of what might yet be to come.
Meditation serves to deepen our awareness of ourselves in the present, sometimes as a respite during the day or preparation for the day to come, but always mindful of the aim to calm and center our minds for greater clarity of thought.