My Approach

Psychotherapy is simultaneously one of the most difficult and most rewarding things one can do. Honestly confronting the patterns of thinking, feeling, and behavior that maintain the life you have and understanding the roots of your values, beliefs, and desires can be hard work, but it is also the best way to break old habits and start to live a life you want.

As a clinician trained both in psychotherapy and philosophy, I get to know how my patients’ minds operate – how beliefs, desires, and emotions form a sense of self and sustain patterns of thought and behavior. I work to understand how these fit together, and when they do not, what prevents that from happening. I pay careful attention to your lived experience to understand not only what is going wrong but what is going right and work with you to increase that in your life and relationships.

People often come to my practice repeating behaviors that feel natural to them but that result in the same old painful outcomes: dating the same type of partner, getting into the same arguments, struggling in the same way to feel a connection, feeling the same anxiety or ambient-sadness. I work with patients to understand and decalcify these patterns as well as the deep systems of meaning that sustain them. This dual concentration helps us to both cultivate a sense of self that aligns more intentionally with who you want to be and make sure that tomorrow feels better than today.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to therapy. No one modality is fully adequate to address every concern in every circumstance therapists need to possess a facility with multiple clinical methodologies and engage with current research in the field. For that reason, my approach is fundamentally integrative: In addition to my clinical training at NYU, I have trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy, applied behavioral analysis (ABA), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), family systems, and trauma-informed care; I work with adolescents and adults, individuals, couples, and families; and continue to teach, attend conferences, and research issues in the field. The result is an evidence-based approach to therapy that balances addressing the immediate distress of today with an understanding of how your developmental history informs and often supports that distress.  

Effective therapy is not just about symptom reduction or diagnosis, it is about identifying who you are, who you want to be, and then working together to get there.