My Approach

There are numerous types of therapeutic approaches and different styles of therapists, and so to choose the right therapist it is important to understand how they work

The work that I typically do with my patients is called Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytic Therapy, accented with existentialist considerations and approaches. Traditional psychodynamic therapists focus on helping the patient develop insights into their motivations, character structure, and interpersonal style of relating to others. When patients develop insight, they gain a greater understanding they can more effectivly organize and integrate their experiences,  of their problems and the reasons why they behave, think, and feel the way they do. Contemporary psychodynamic therapists, like myself, maintain that gaining insight into one's problems is only one important piece of this project. For instance, the work I do with my patients often places equal emphasis on emotional expression and human relatedness.

Psychoanalytic therapists concentrate on the inner meaning of one's experience, which is different from other types of treatments that focus more singularly on symptom reduction or symptom suppression. I believe what makes psychoanalytic therapy superior to other therapies is that it offers a robust explanatory framework to understand and help those experiencing many forms of emotional distress, common to uncommon, from mild to severe. Notably, this approach also acknowledges the importance of relational dynamics - both between the patient and the significant people in their lives, but also between the patient and the therapist.

In 2015 I earned a postgraduate certificate in psychoanalytic psychotherapy from the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis.