First and foremost, my priority is to understand you— what your priorities are for the therapy and what you think, feel and want. I create a compassionate, non-judgmental space for you to be real and authentic with me (and your partner, if doing couples therapy). I honor your autonomy and to never impose an agenda onto you. I offer my reflections and suggestions, but you are welcome to disagree, opt out or to let me know if something I say doesn’t land for you. I treat therapy as an ongoing collaborative dialogue where we are all free to speak our minds. I meet you where you’re at and find what works for you instead of offering a one-size-fits-all approach.

I will challenge you to grow— towards your goals in therapy. While I hope that you feel comfortable opening up to me and strive to create a warm, open environment for you to do so, I’m not a therapist who focuses on ‘safety’ at the expense of growth. The reality is that you won’t meet your goals if you don’t take risks, do things that might feel a bit edgy or uncomfortable, to practice emotionally intimate ways of relating rather than unconscious distancing behaviors that keeps you stuck— distancing from your own feelings and/or from others.

I’m an experiential therapist. I help facilitate real, felt change for my clients, not just cognitive insight. I support individuals and couples in having new experiences with themselves, with each other and with me that are aligned with their goals. In couples therapy, that includes couples facing and interacting directly with each other. In individual therapy, that can look like using our relationship as a “laboratory” to learn about yourself.

I work in the here-and-now. While your past is relevant to your present-day struggles, therapy is focused on what’s happening in the present moment. You can’t change the past, but you can change how you’re relating to your partner or your life right now. Therapy is not a place for endless storytelling. It’s a place for action, progress and change.

I tell the truth compassionately about what’s getting in your way. With couples, that may look like one of you being in the ‘hot seat’ sometimes—not to criticize or embarrass you—but to help you see what’s hindering you. Sessions may not be ‘balanced’ when taken session by session. But it’s important that we focus on each partner’s logjams to emotional intimacy.

I don’t shy away from hard topics. I help couples have straight conversations about what’s actually going on— thoughts of divorce, affairs, sex or porn ‘addiction’ or a dead sex life. Whether you’re in individual or couples therapy with me, there are no taboo topics.

I help you get specific and stay focused on what you want for yourself. I always return to your goals for therapy— that’s the pulse and the frame of our work together. Unlike some other therapists and modalities, I’m not an open-ended-therapy-type-therapist. You’re here to achieve specific goals— my job is to support you in doing so as efficiently and effectively as possible.