My Practice

My original work was as an Anthropologist studying religious movements, cults and alternative lifestyles of people going ‘against the grain’ of their traditional cultures. Through this I became interested in how individuals live, adapt and change under stressful circumstances. And I became interested in helping people change and grow and live better lives. To do this more effectively, I retrained as a psychotherapist (Clinical Social Work & Certification in Psychoanalysis and Comprehensive Psychotherapy). I still consider myself to be a practicing Anthropologist – a participant observer. This is reflected in my style of work which is interactive, present and oriented toward helping the person coming to me live better and attain better-adapted lives.

In my work I’ve come to see that people want to be able to become intimate and connected to one another, but have developed many ways of stopping themselves. These frustrating mechanisms are the character traits called ‘defenses’: the ways we lean to adapt to emotional and social forces in the world of our childhood and. These defenses become built-in as habitual ways of acting and reacting. As we try to grow and develop, though, these we leaned to ‘stay in the game’ as a child – with our families, with peers – stop working. They become the ‘problem’ that keeps us from achieving our goal of being connected and intimate. The connections we do make are made at high emotional cost and are often loaded with tension, conflict and depression.