Making the commitment to improve your life through therapy can be intimidating, which is why a non-judgmental and collaborative environment is the key to success. I provide a warm and outgoing therapeutic style focused on collaboration while also compassionately challenging you to explore ways to live a more satisfying life. This is accomplished by working together to better understand the causes of your struggles through increasing self-awareness, understanding relationship patterns, managing strong emotions, and increasing mindfulness in order to live a more fulfilling life.This is all accomplished by better understanding how the internal reactions to interpersonal problems and life stressors is colored by problematic patterns of interacting with others and issues with self-esteem.

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Therapy begins with a "consultation "phase, which is usually the first two to three sessions and focuses on obtaining background information, discussing your current difficulties, and identifying your goals for therapy.  This phase also allows you to make sure I am a good fit for you as a therapist and that you feel comfortable with the process.  We will also go through informed consent, which involves your rights as a client and my responsibilities as a therapist, and discuss logistical issues such as scheduling and fees. 

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After the consultation phase, therapy sessions formally begin with a focus on working collaboratively towards accomplishing your goals for therapy. I primarily work from a psychodynamic perspective that involves relating past experiences to current problems, highlighting conflictual feelings/defense mechanisms, and shedding light on unconscious conflicts to increase awareness to stop problematic ways of navigating the world.  This is all within the context of becoming more aware of your internal experience (thoughts, feelings, wishes) in the moment so these experiences do not get in the way of a happy and healthy life.