Areas of Focus
My practice offers a safe space for couples and individuals to approach themselves and their partners with curiosity and compassion. With over two decades of expertise, I specialize in addressing complications posed by depression, anxiety, conflict, mis-attunement, and other relational complexities.
Couples and Relationships
Neuroscience and attachment theory tell us we are hard wired for connection, in need of relationships, longing for intimacy and love. Being close, however, is not easy. Whether too close or too distant, it's hard to get it just right. I work with individuals and couples to build reliability and trust, to find ways to create, or re-create closeness and connection, or in some cases to separate. This includes identifying cycles of conflict and distance and finding/implementing tools to intervene. I am especially interested in helping couples re-establish a sense of intimacy without abandoning each partner's individual aspirations.
Depression
Depression is an overwhelming sense of sadness, irritability, or deadness that is often painfully accompanied by helplessness, despair, worthlessness, or guilt. Depression can interfere with intimate and social relationships as well as professional ambitions. Whether your depression is reactive to recent losses, disappointments and stressors or is more cyclical--a dark retreat that re-emerges-- I will help you identify and understand the sources of your negative feelings, develop a compassionate stance towards yourself, re-establish a sense of connection to others, and find your way through to feelings of hope and possibility.
Anxiety
Anxiety is a signal, alerting us to impending danger. When adaptive, anxiety enables us to take action, to meet or cope with perceived threat. When anxiety gets the upper hand, it leaves us uncomfortably self-conscious, nervous, ashamed, exhausted. Astonishingly crippling, anxiety interferes with perception, attention, and learning. It causes confusion and sometimes complete avoidance, exacerbating isolation, loneliness, and shame. I will work with you to track triggers to anxiety and panic, develop techniques for self-soothing, creating space for other feelings and experiences.