My work as a therapist is founded in an axiom that I believe applies to all human relationships (and  perhaps even brief encounters):

 

Whenever two (or more) human beings with open hearts occupy the same proximate space, some form of mutually nourishing, healing and/or transformative exchange will take place.

 

From this perspective, our job together is thus to say whatever needs to be said and do whatever needs to be done in order to maintain (or re-establish) an open-hearted connection with one another. 

 

I have learned over and over (though I still often forget) that if this fundamental condition (i.e., a mutually open-hearted connection with another human being in present time) is met, healing and evolution arise quite naturally (and often powerfully) without any further “effort” from us, in ways we could never have predicted, much less controlled.

 

For me, the “effort” of psychotherapy is usually more in the work that is often necessary to deconstruct our conditioned, fear-based – and usually quite automated -- ways of perceiving and relating to ourselves and each other that we first constructed in an effort to “protect” ourselves from the free (but sometimes toxic) flow of energy between us and the other (perhaps unconscious) humans whose presence in our early life so profoundly impacted us.

 

(Said another way – and this is one of my favorite therapeutic “one liners” – one of our primary tasks in psychotherapy is to dismantle the fortresses we've built that have now become our prisons...)

 

Continuing from this perspective, I see my job as establishing a sanctum (both in the specific time and place of our meetings, as well as in the larger context of our relationship) for you to feel safe and free – and perhaps even encouraged and/or challenged -- to discover yourself and just plain be yourself in relationship with another human being (i.e., me). 

 

I see your job as first testing to see if I am really capable of doing what I say I am aiming to do – and then taking advantage of the opportunity presented (assuming I pass the test) by being as deeply and courageously honest with yourself and with me about what is really going on inside of you as you can possibly be.

 

Repeated experience has taught me to trust that if we each put some genuine energy into “doing our jobs” by these definitions, you will naturally and gradually begin (or continue) to blossom as a person through the synergy of our connection.

 

 

(If you have further questions about my approach as a therapist,

please feel free to ask me directly.)

​

​