Psychotherapy
A Space to Understand Yourself More Deeply.
We need relationships to see, feel, understand, and come to know ourselves. Psychotherapy involves being in relationship. Over time, many of the things that you experience with me may reflect something of what you experience in your other relationships. What is most unresolved finds a way of coming alive between us, which gives us an opportunity to explore and work with it in real time.
What to expect
We use a psychodynamically-informed approach to therapy that focuses on depth, connection, and the healing potential of relationship.
​Relationship
We need relationships to see, feel, understand, and come to know ourselves. Psychotherapy involves being in relationship.
Inner Experience
Our feelings are a link to our innermost experience. When we lose contact with our feeling self.
Pattern Recognition
We all have unconscious ways of relating to ourselves, others, and the world to manage and protect ourselves from pain.
Consultation
A Space to Understand Yourself More Deeply.
I offer individual clinical consultation to both new and experienced practitioners across the helping professions. This is not limited to psychotherapists, but may include nurses, body workers, massage therapists, physiotherapists, chiropractors and others whose work involves therapeutic relationships.
Clinical consultation can be particularly useful when you notice feelings or reactions emerging within you in the presence of a particular client or patient. These experiences can offer important information about the person, the relationship, and what may be unfolding between you. Consultation can also be helpful when the work feels “stuck” or as though there is little movement in the process.
For those of us who have been called to the helping professions, the journey of refining our skills and growing in our field is continual. As therapists, we form unique and heartfelt intersubjective bonds, which we draw upon to facilitate our work. Because of the depth and intensity of these relationships, we are called upon to see and know ourselves deeply. Our own ongoing growth and self-understanding can expand our capacity to be present with another person and to accompany them in their onw process of healing, growth, and transformation.
Call to Action
Let's start your journey today. What's on your mind?
Free clinical consultation
for students
A Space to Understand Yourself More Deeply.
I offer individual clinical consultation to both new and experienced practitioners across the helping professions. This is not limited to psychotherapists, but may include nurses, body workers, massage therapists, physiotherapists, chiropractors and others whose work involves therapeutic relationships.
Clinical consultation can be particularly useful when you notice feelings or reactions emerging within you in the presence of a particular client or patient. These experiences can offer important information about the person, the relationship, and what may be unfolding between you. Consultation can also be helpful when the work feels “stuck” or as though there is little movement in the process.
For those of us who have been called to the helping professions, the journey of refining our skills and growing in our field is continual. As therapists, we form unique and heartfelt intersubjective bonds, which we draw upon to facilitate our work. Because of the depth and intensity of these relationships, we are called upon to see and know ourselves deeply. Our own ongoing growth and self-understanding can expand our capacity to be present with another person and to accompany them in their onw process of healing, growth, and transformation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Psychoanalysis got a bad rap.
It is thought to be outdated, and it is generally considered a longer-term form of therapy. For these and other reasons, it has been relegated to the outskirts of mental health treatment. This has unfortunately resulted in the loss of a deep source of knowledge about the mind, the body, and the self.
Psychoanalytic thinking has evolved considerably over the years, with contemporary theories placing greater emphasis on relationship, attachment, trauma, the body, and our earliest experiences of being with others. Despite this, modalities that claim to fix the problem faster and to immediately relieve suffering have come to dominate much of mental health treatment, sometimes at the expense of true depth and embodied self-understanding.
We understandably want relief from our inner turmoil and pain, But sometimes finding a quick solution occurs at the expense of touching our own inner depths and transforming the experiences that reside there. Many people have developed ways to manage their pain or even have an understanding of their suffering but find that this is not enough to transform it.
Sometimes life requires a disconnect from our innermost selves. This is putting it lightly, When this occurs, it can feel like a shattering or ripping away from ourselves, profoundly affecting our sense of existence in the world. This can leave us feeling lost, unsure, and easily overwhelmed.
Psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy supports a gradual and gentle process of reconnection that occurs in the context of a safe and supportive relationship. It involves learning from our inner experience in the presence of another person. When we can listen closely, our feelings can guide us much like a compass helps us to find our way in the wilderness.
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I am not a trained psychoanalyst, but I study psychoanalytic theory and use psychoanalytic thinking as a guiding principle in my clinical work.
No, I have only chairs in my office at the moment.
While laying on a couch offer a different experience and can support the therapeutic process in different ways, it isn’t necessary of psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy. Given my current office space, it is not an option that I offer at this time.
Many believe that they need to show up to therapy with a plan or a sense of what they want to talk about.
While I welcome these thoughts and your sense of direction, I also invite you to come without a plan if one is not readily available to you. This allows us to be together with where you are in the moment and to find our way from there. Often what we most need to say lacks words at first and may simply need time and space to germinate.
Intro Para
I usually recommend that if you want to do a focused piece of work addressing an issue that you are dealing with, plan to come once per week when possible, and no less than once every two weeks. Appointments that occur once every three weeks or longer become more like check-ins, which is also acceptable, but expectations for the work need to be adjusted accordingly.
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For more analytically informed therapy and the opportunity for deeper process and greater relational depth, sessions two to four times per week may be recommended.
No, you can arrive with a symptom, a feeling, or a wordless sense of things.
Together we can find what you might be looking for from therapy. Sometimes our needs and wants lack language at first and finding words that communicate your experience can be a part of our process.
Yes, I offer a free 20-minute remote consultation.
This allows us to get to know each other a little, gives you an opportunity to ask questions, and allows me to learn something about what brings you to therapy.
A good fit is not always easy to assess immediately.
The initial consultation gives us a chance to get an initial sense of the relationship, but it may take time to get a sense of each other and how we are able to work together. It may also take time for you to experience the way that I work and to decide whether it is a fit for you. You are always welcome to share your sense of things and, in the event that you decide we’re not a fit, I am happy to help you connect to other resources.
At other times, difficult relational patterns can come alive in the therapeutic relationship, which can cause things to feel as though they aren’t working, or create an urge to end therapy abruptly. When this happens, staying with what has emerged and trying to understand it together can be an important part of the therapeutic work. This is something that we can explore together if it arises.