I have been trained in Depth psychology, Gestalt, Narrative, Cognitive Behavior and in the evidence-based practice Seeking Safety. This provides me with a spectrum of positions from which to work with you, from developmental and attachment issues, to focusing on and increasing awareness of the less reflective areas of the psyche, to intimate relationship issues, to issues related to your position in our society and to decreasing the impact of symptoms on your behavior and functioning.

I don’t think any of us are perfect, and I’m a little suspicious of the term, though I’ll be glad to help you explore the meaning of this concept as it plays out in your life. But the idea of wholeness makes sense to me and informs the work I do. “Whole” and “healing” come from the same word. I believe that each of us contains what we’re looking for, and that much of the practice of psychotherapy is moving this material from an unconscious or a split-off state into awareness where it can be reflected on, claimed, integrated and celebrated. I also subscribe to the belief that meaning decreases suffering. Questions such as “Where did this idea come from?” “What purpose does it serve?” “What does it connect to and what does it deny?” bring meaning forward, to be discovered or to be made for the first time. Meaning guides the integration of material that may have been previously “left out” of the image you have of yourself. It also provides the position we sometimes call “outside of the box” from which we can detach from symptoms in order to more effectively assess and address them.

Another word we get from the same root as whole and heal is holy. Most broadly I locate my work in the belief that life is non-replicable, that you don’t live in order to do something but that everything you do is in service to your life, that you don’t occur in a textbook someplace but must be met and engaged as an individual. In the same way that meaning continues to be made through the duration of life so we each participate in the continuing creation of our world. As the poet says, “This universe is our home.”