Psychotherapy for difficulties that keep returning.

Sometimes people begin therapy because they are in a crisis. Just as often, they come because something has been difficult for a long time.

You may repeatedly find yourself in relationships that become painful in similar ways. You may be very sensitive to criticism, struggle to trust other people, or find it difficult to know what you want. You may be successful in important parts of your life while remaining dissatisfied or uncertain in others.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy is concerned with these recurring patterns. Rather than beginning with a predetermined explanation, I try to understand how you experience yourself and other people, what happens when you feel threatened or disappointed, and what makes particular difficulties so persistent.

Over time, therapy can make it possible to recognize ways of thinking, feeling, and relating that have previously operated outside of awareness—and to have more choice about them.

I don't begin treatment with the assumption that I already know what your difficulty means. Instead, I listen for patterns: what tends to happen in your relationships, what kinds of situations repeatedly become painful, how you respond when you feel hurt or threatened, and how you understand the behavior of other people.

The relationship between therapist and patient can also be useful in this process. Ways of expecting, trusting, avoiding, pleasing, challenging, or protecting oneself often appear in therapy just as they do elsewhere.

My work is informed by contemporary psychoanalytic thinking and by advanced training in Transference-Focused Psychotherapy, an approach developed for people with complex and persistent difficulties in relationships, identity, and emotional life.

I have extensive experience working with gay men and other LGBTQ+ patients. Sometimes sexuality or gender is central to what brings someone to therapy; often it is not.

My work may include questions involving relationships, intimacy, identity, sexuality, shame, family, aging, and the ways social or cultural expectations can shape how a person experiences themselves and other people.

I approach these concerns in the context of the whole person rather than assuming that sexual orientation or gender identity explains a particular difficulty. As in the rest of my practice, the aim is to understand the particular meanings and patterns that are important in an individual's life.

Couples often come to therapy knowing exactly what they argue about. What is less obvious is why the argument keeps taking the same form.

One partner feels ignored and protests. The other feels criticized and withdraws. One person seeks reassurance in a way that makes the other feel controlled. Attempts to solve the problem can gradually become part of the problem itself.

Couples therapy provides an opportunity to slow these interactions down and understand what each person experiences in them.

I work with couples around recurring conflict, emotional and sexual intimacy, trust, infidelity, communication difficulties, and major changes in a relationship. The goal is not to determine who is right. It is to understand the relationship well enough that both people have greater freedom in how they respond to one another.