Washington, D.C. Psychotherapy Services for Meaningful Results

Welcome to my web site. I’ve included information here regarding my experience, training and my approach to psychotherapy so that you can get to know me and how I work. My approach is practical and focused with the specific intent of helping clients use their emotional resources, strengths and talents and minimize their emotional pain as they learn to resolve their difficulties successfully. The overall aim of treatment is to help you know yourself better, identify feelings, ideas, values and needs that are meaningful to you and which will help you become more effective in dealing with your difficulties in life.

Throughout the course of our lives we develop certain habitual styles of thinking that often distort the true reality of our relationships or a significant issue in our lives. These distortions of thought are often unconscious ways of trying to protect ourselves from a painful reality that we don’t want to face. With psychotherapy you have the ability to notice your distorted thinking and to consciously choose a new direction. Psychotherapy puts a ladder up so you can more easily climb over a wall with fewer bruises in a shorter time than if you were to scale that wall alone without the help of the ladder.

Although openness to new ideas and a sincere desire for positive change are crucially important we often stay with the familiar assuming it will eventually produce the desired - or different - results. All the research on change indicates we stay with the familiar especially in matters of emotional significance.

Albert Einstein said it best: "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

When we resist change we miss opportunities because the discomfort we feel around change - fear, anxiety and worry - can limit our ability to see other options. If we want to think differently, we need to feel differently first. Finding new strategies to work through emotional issues requires mindful approaches as we develop a new consciousness.

It gets a bit harder to acknowledge this when faced with long standing issues or situations that have a strong emotional charge. We're quick to believe that no matter what we do, the other person won't change, the deadlines won't go away and the loss is too painful to bear.

Psychotherapy is a process that can be empowering, foster optimism and autonomy in individuals seeking professional assistance. Psychotherapy as a compassionate and change-oriented process can promote personal growth and development.

Reducing stress, resolving conflict and working through life’s difficulties is not about other people changing. It’s about changing yourself since that is where your real power lies. I find collaborating with my clients in co-creating change in their lives is profoundly meaningful in my own life. I look forward to mentoring you in this process.

Some Difficulties In Living

Relationship Difficulties	Academic Difficulties	Loss
Anxiety / Obsessive Worry	Work Difficulties	Grief/Bereavement
Depression / Mood Disorders	Health Issues	Caretaking
Trauma / Abuse	PTSD / Dissociative Disorders	Separation/Divorce