As a holistically-oriented psychologist, my work blends together modern neuroscience with practices drawn from the world’s great wisdom traditions. My therapeutic approach is forward-looking and works to activate your innate personal resources. My work integrates brain, mind, body, and our social connections to bring out the best in each of us.

My therapy work is organized around 4 Key Assumptions.

• Change is inevitable. Our task is to help you orient to the change process in a positive direction.

• Symptoms, whether physical, mental/emotional or both, often develop in response to people’s efforts to cope with change. Our task is to help you learn effective coping strategies that allow your symptoms to subside or even disappear.

• Knowing how to use your mind can help you rewire your brain and transform your life. Our task is to help you tap into the rich variety of methods available to sharpen your mental focus and increase your emotional resilience so that the full potential of your miraculous brain can be put to work for you in your day-to- day life.

Learning to adjust and adapt to the unexpected is an essential coping skill to live life more fully, with greater meaning and purpose and with greater joy. Our task is to increase your ability to recognize uncertainty and the unexpected as the raw material upon which a resilient life is built and turn that into essential strategies for living well.

I enjoy working with couples. The energy, intensity, hopes, and dreams that bring couples into therapy is a powerful resource that, when channeled effectively, not only improves the relationship, but each individual in it.

We are fundamentally social beings. We express our social nature through attachment patterns that form very early in our lives and that play out in our relationships, and most strongly in our love relationship. Working with those patterns is central to the work we do together.

Relationship challenges usually come to a head when the couple hits a crossroad in their lives. The conflicts often show up in core arenas, examples of which I’ve listed below. 

• Financial Crises: promotions, demotions, job losses, job changes

• Intimacy Challenges: affairs, sexual performance or changes in desire

• Family Planning: having a child (or struggling to conceive), parenting struggles

• Chemical Use: changes in the use of alcohol, prescription or street drugs

• Relatives: aging parents, struggles with in-laws, family boundary challenges

• Power and Control: who gets to make decisions, who wields power, how is control exercised

Whether seeking traditional hour-long therapy sessions or longer and more involved therapy intensive sessions, I am committed to honoring the needs of each partner in the couple as we work together to help you achieve a livelier, more fulfilling and more intimate connection to each other, or when necessary, enabling couples to separate respectfully and move forward with their lives.

Visit www.partnersatcrossroads.com for more in-depth information about couples therapy.

Clinical hypnosis is the name for a set of skills that I incorporate into some of my work that helps you to access your inner resources more effectively and reach your therapy goals more quickly. Most people think they know what hypnosis is, but most of their understanding is sadly influenced by what they see on stage or in movies. Clinical hypnosis is an ancient art and science that builds on inborn skills we all have to change established habits, tap into inner resources, and overcome challenges we didn’t believe we could. 

Clinical hypnosis have been well-established as a powerful tool to help you with: 

Chronic pain; digestive disorders; depression; anxiety; sexual functioning challenges; insomnia; resolution of lingering effects of past trauma; relationship-based intimacy challenges; habit control; preparation for medical/dental procedures…

This is but a partial list of conditions or concerns that have a proven record of getting better faster when clinical hypnosis is incorporated into the treatment process. I have been studying and using clinical hypnosis in my professional practice for more than 20 years. I have been teaching hypnosis to other professionals and to my clients for nearly as long. I am well-recognized by reputable national and international professional training organizations for my work with hypnosis.

While there are many misunderstandings about what hypnosis is and is not, I invite you to explore it with me so that you too can discover its powerful benefits.

Additional resources for you and your healing journey

Partners at crossroads

“Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.” Paul Coelho

When you need help to repair and restore your relationship, or find that it is time for the relationship to end, I am here to help you with safe, effective, practical, and rewarding relationship services grounded in the neuroscience of social connection.

NATURE’S MEDICINE

“We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of the soul.” J. O’Donohue.

Drawing on the power of nature to restore the natural rhythms of our mind, brain, and body, I offer Nature’s Medicine as accessible, useful, and simple tools to help you to reconnect nature’s beauty and to support your ongoing healing journey.

Therapy Thoughts: A Mini-Podcast

People do not come into therapy to change their past but their future.

Until you are willing to be confused about what you already know, what you know will never grown bigger, better, or more useful.

These two quotes by Milton H. Erickson, a major influence on my therapeutic approach, capture the focus of Therapy Thoughts. In these mini-podcasts, I’ll address common topics with which clients present, and I’ll offer a perspective, a tip or tool to enhance your resilience, and a reading or resource for you if you want to explore the topic further.