Approach

Psychotherapy is an unusual proposition: it is about talking to another person about one's most private thoughts and feelings. To help the process, I hold a number of core principles in my practice, outlined below and on my home page.

Trust and Non-Judgment

Trust is a central pillar of psychotherapy. It can take time to trust and to open up to a therapist. Over the years, many of my patients have indicated that one of the single most important elements of therapy was trust: trust in me, trust to speak freely, without fear of judgment and in fact with the sense that I would respond in a supportive and constructive manner.

Feedback

As I see it, feedback plays a central role in the development and refinement of the therapeutic collaboration. So I encourage patients to share their feedback, and I will periodically inquire to find out how they feel their therapy is going from session to session and in the larger sense.

Eclecticism

Fundamentally, I see value in many of the theories of personality that have shaped the field of psychotherapy since its inception. Depending on the patient’s needs, I will choose ideas from a variety of theories. If a patient is interested in my theoretical approach, I am happy to be transparent at any given time and share what theories I draw from and why.