SERVICES

I work with individuals, couples and families. His specialty is working with unhappy adults and struggling couples. And I work comfortably and well with those dealing with addictive issues.

Work with Individuals:
I believe there are identifiable reasons for psychological and emotional symptoms of depression, anxiety, irritability, hopelessness, helplessness, marital discord, financial issues--unhappiness. I work with the things in your life that don't work - and strongly believe that you can grow, heal and change these things.

The goal of psychotherapy and life is to become happier--more content and secure--intrapersonally more effective and more graceful. In essence, psychotherapy helps us to grow along personal, relational, intellectual and spiritual lines.

I work with individuals using a multi-modal approach including TA, Gestalt, psychomotor, experiential and cognitive behavioral methods. I also work with children and adolescents. back to top

Work with Couples:
I love working with couples. I beiieve if they both partners meet the minimum but important non negotiables then most any difficulty can be overcome and the couple can get better. Much better.I have seen this over and over again.
Actually, one of the non negotiables is that both parties are willing to come to therapy and look at their issues. The reason couples struggle is because of lack of skills but mainly a plethora of personal issues that get in the way. When each member are willing to look at , take responsiblity for and work on their personal issues then couples get better. Really.
I am a little unique in my approach with couples in that I do the couples therapy and the usually needed subsequent individual therapy too. The downside of one partner being worried about who's side I am on is pale in comparison to my being able to keep the therapy focus on repairing and strengthening the relationship.

Because of personal issues, mainly of the family of origin variety, being in relationship is difficult. Most are not prgrammed or trained, as it were, to know how to do relationshiips well. In fact most are trained, so to speak, in crashing and burning. That's why leaving is too easy for most. It is also one of the reasons I like to keep the therapy in house because I can direct these difficulties and blamitis' back to the individual's issues.

I use a blend of TA, Gestalt, self parenting, psychomotor, Cognitive Behavioral therapy, and variations on the theories of Harville Hendrix and David Snartch to wonderful ends. I can work with couples individually or with my wife, Kay working with one partner, me with the other and have couples sessions together. This configuration works really well.

As I state in the Self Parenting Article on Relationships,

...health in a relationship is determined by how much the couple giggle or share. Healthy intimacy entails a solid connection between the child parts of each member of the couple. When there is this kind of intimacy, there is plenty of playfulness, laughter, and sharing feelings in an expressive and direct way. There is safety, trust, cooperation and easy connectedness. And grace with an upset.

Let's look at the characteristics of a relationship when the two kids love each other, like each other, respect each other, and feel safe with each other. With this kind of intimacy, there is a capacity to be vulnerable and share that which is most important. There is a communication and expression of the whole range of feelings and experiences from the mundane to the profound. There is also a state (originating in the child) where thinking about the other makes the heart warm and fuzzy and a desire to express (gush) these feelings in all kinds of ways. In these conditions, there is a bond felt between the kids that their partner is just that - a genuine partner, someone who is glad they're alive, glad to be with them, and glad to have them on this life adventure. This intimacy, by definition, means there is an openness to and interest in each others experiences. That is the goal of couples work.

There are 3 areas that block intimacy. Unexpressed anger, an out of balance relationship with one partner being too much the grown up and family of origin baggage. Primary relationships are very fertile ground or blank screen for our family of origin stuff to get splattered onto. It's what we do relationships for on some level. The idea is that we recreate or or are seriously sensitized to our early woundedness in our intimate relationships. Then we dance the dance to try to work them out and or just stew in them. We can stay in this otheritis in some fashion for perpetuity unless we get conscious and work this out. And if we don't work these wounds out then they fester and are just as likely to show up in the next relationship or other relationships. We cannot get away from the need to heal so why try to get away.

One of your grownup responsibilities in the relationship is to maintain a commitment to being in the best place (via self work) for your partner, and a commitment to clearing blocks that cover your love, respect, and openness. It's really not healthy for you, for your partner, or for the relationship to often land in and stay in blocked, unexpressive, cold, withdrawn, or angry and pissy places. These upseting places are inevitable, indeed, they almost must happen because of the way we are wired and in order for there to be growth. So, this last commitment is really to learn how to work with yourself and with your partner to stay on the loving path and pull yourself out of the ditches of pissiness and blame that are inevitable.

Basically, couples progress requires the internal grownups of each partner to recognize what part is in the drivers seat with your partner--particularly around an upset. Then the goal is to be able to talk about or hear an upset from a grown up place not a kid place. The grown up function is to listen, hear, empathize and recognize your impact on others. (Kid parts explain, deny, defend, blame back, etc. etc.--not pretty, but all too common.) There are steps in couple threapy progress that i list in an aritlce on relationship and follow in my work. The steps are designed to give external skills, internal awareness and compassion for the couple. The goal is to develop a relationship where couples can become partners and support for each others healing. Again this healing is one of the primary reasons we enter relationships. This is interesting because you can tell the extent of the need for healing by the extend of the hurt and anger that we are splattering. The idea is to recognize what is real and what is memorex in our desire to splatter. And then to work on it and instead of inflict it.

This is easier said than done, but achievable. Couples therapy teaches the skills necessary to heal old resentments and learn to be more responsive, respectful and responsible - to yourself and your life mate and other family members.

Think about how much time and energy you put into something that's important to you. Whether this be your career or a hobby, you are usually dedicated and willing to overcome difficulties in order to succeed. If you put one tenth of the effort into learning about yourself and becoming a better partner that you do in your other important pursuits, you will realize great benefits. And what's more important!?

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Work with Addictions:

I am grateful to have been in recovery for a fair while. Being part of the fellowship has brought him many gifts. One of the best presents the program has given to him is a reawakened spiritual connection which has grown exponentially over the years.

From a psychological/emotional perspective, wanting to use, either through alcohol, drugs, food, sex, work, etc., is either wanting to medicate a feeling or trying to meet a need (usually for nurturance).

Roadmap therapy and Self Parenting, both in the mapping aspect of who's in the drivers seat of your personality and in terms of the operating principles works great with those in the program--especially those with a little time under their belt. This is because the goal of recovery (and therapy) is to have a good grownup be the primary driver in our lives so that we don't act on unhealthy impulses. Also, being truly sober, by definition, means having the graceful grownup in place so that we can minimally have the wisdom to know the difference. You can usually tell folks with double digits because this graceful grownup is stronger and more evident. Roadmap therapy is accelerated finishing school for this part. This is so important because most of us didn't get lots of modeling or coaching in how to be truly grownup in all our affairs.

Two of the major focus' of Roadmap therapy is processing/metabolizing unexpressed emotions and learning about and meeting old unmet and current needs. Hence, it is really good in working with the psychological and emotional issues underlying an addiction.

The bottom line is Roadmap therapy is a really good fit for folks in recovery and they are a good and enjoyable part of my practice.

See the Inner Symphony for an idea of how this might be relevant.
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