Philosophy

I am committed to helping people live more deeply and satisfyingly in body, mind, and soul.

I believe that each person is born with the potentials they need to find a satisfying and dignified way of living. Sometimes those resources are distorted or hidden, sometimes they have been resigned or wrapped in shame or fear, and sometimes they are strong and vibrant and just waiting to come out. But they are there, and with the right support they can emerge and become a vital part of one's life.

I believe that we human beings are fundamentally relational creatures. In childhood we can grow into our full abilities only within relationships to other people. As adults we are less dependent but we still need relationships in which to love, work and play. We also need them to grow, to heal, and to reclaim parts of ourselves that we bargained away earlier in life. Solitude, self-reliance, and dignity are all possible within relationships. So are community, connection, and mutual support.

It's not surprising, then, that I believe that many of the greatest benefits of therapy grow out of the relationship between client and therapist. The relationship that develops between us is the tool, the experimental ground, and the seedbed for changes in wider life.

Major life problems are often experienced as symptoms of some sort—anxiety, depression, conflicts, addictions, and so on. Symptoms are useful and can teach us much if we are willing to learn. Every symptom is part of an attempt to solve a problem, whether a person is aware of it or not. Often those attempts are creative and even brilliant, but they can also come with unwanted effects. For example, you may have survived an extremely self-centered parent by becoming very independent. But later in life, your drive for independence can make accommodating to another person feel like a life-or-death threat. That can throw major roadblocks into a marriage, a friendship, or work relationships.

Just as many of our strengths have a downside, many seeming negatives in ourselves contain great potential strengths. Some of the finest work in therapy comes out of this rich and ambiguous place in which our "strengths" and "weaknesses" reveal themselves more completely, and with them our own inmost characters and capacities.