About Therapy

Therapy is goal-directed conversation in the service of change. Fundamentally, the goal of therapy is to bring you to a point where you can make freer choices regarding your life, act as your own best parent or manager, and avoid foreseeable regrets. The particular course and duration of therapy is determined by individual life history and circumstances, and will vary from person to person.

As your counselor, it is my responsibility to provide a private and confidential, non-threatening environment. I will give you my undivided attention and will apply both my theoretical knowledge and my personal experience of you to the problems at hand.

Theoretical Orientations

Psychodynamic
Problematic behavior, thoughts, and feelings can sometimes arise from conflicted, or defended, feelings. If this is the case for you, your counseling will aim to identify and weaken these conflicts by exploring and challenging the thoughts and feelings that maintain them. This will help you to live your life in more authentic, adaptive, effective, well-intentioned, and socially mindful ways.
Learn more about the Psychodynamic Model

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) will help you to live your life more in the present moment. It will help you to focus more on your own unique values and personal goals, and less on your painful thoughts, feelings, and experiences. ACT uses acceptance and mindfulness techniques to help you create distance between you and your undesired thoughts and feelings. It also aims to create greater psychological flexibility, self-compassion, and a sustained commitment to value driven, goal directed behavior.
Learn more about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Existential
Existential therapy explores how you personally confront the givens of our human existence—freedom/responsibility, isolation, meaninglessness, and death. It emphasizes your ultimate freedom to choose what you make of your circumstances, and explores values and options for creating a more meaningful existence.
Learn more about Existential Psychotherapy

Cognitive-Behavioral
It is often not actual events or situations that cause us distress, but our thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes regarding them. Problems can also arise from taking our thoughts and feelings too literally. Learning to correct faulty assumptions and center our minds around positive present and future events are easy ways to start feeling better quickly.

Tips for Maximizing Your Benefits

Knowledge
The more knowledge you have, the more intentionally you can act.
Be open to considering any information that may bear on your concerns.
Ask those you trust for their opinion.
Do supplemental reading and remain open to ideas that challenge you to examine your life in new ways.

Communication
Online communication is inherently limited by a lack of nonverbal communication. I will need to directly inquire for any information I may be missing and I encourage you to be as forthcoming as you feel comfortable with. E-mail lingo and emoticons can also be helpful. Ideally, communicate in ways that feel the most natural for you. Take your time responding, and never hesitate to ask questions, clarify my meaning, and correct me when I am wrong.

Customize
If there is a theory that interests you let me know. As long as I do not find it harmful or unscientific, I will familiarize myself with it.
Are there any particular sayings, quotes, or songs that inspire you?
Are there any religious, spiritual, cultural, or political values that provide foundations for you to stand on?

Project Status
Improving your life requires both intent and action, therefore, the more you put into this process, the more you will get out of it. Consider what you can do outside of the therapy hour, or between e-mails, to enhance your progress. Pay attention to your positive and negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, when they tend to occur, and what they do for you. Reflect on how your past may be affecting your present. Journal, do supplemental reading and homework recommendations, pay attention to your daydreams, dreams, etc. Make a conscious effort to refocus your attention onto the positive things you intend for yourself. Save your session transcripts or e-mails and re-read them periodically to chart your progress and consolidate your gains. It can be particularly helpful to review your previous session within twenty-four hours prior to your next session. Commit to therapy for a period of time.

Keep in mind that not only is therapy about improving the way you relate to your world, it is also about improving the way you relate to yourself. Move at a pace that works for you—be careful not to overwhelm yourself, but be mindful not to underestimate yourself as well. And be patient. Habits that have taken years to form may not be undone overnight.

Client Rights, Risks and Responsibilities

Rights
Right to refuse any services or modality change.
Right to refuse to participate in certain techniques, homework/reading recommendations, or lines of inquiry.
Right to terminate at any time although I recommend discussing the decision to terminate.
Right to ask me any questions that relate to your therapy.
Right to see your files.

Risks
In therapy you may gain awareness that may cause pain and anxiety.
Significant change may produce disruptions and turmoil within relationships and families.
Specific outcomes cannot be guaranteed.

Responsibilities
Clients must provide information—thoughts, feelings, behaviors, memories, dreams—to be discussed in sessions.
Follow emergency protocol.
Give cancellation notice as far in advance as possible.