I believe that treatment should be tailored to each individual’s needs and wishes. In my practice I promote people’s strengths and abilities to explore their inner world and identify their barriers or psychological conflicts that might be in the way of accomplishing the life they desire. Respect, compassion, curiosity and trust are the core values that drive my work.

At times in life it is challenging to articulate pain or to understand what areas of our being need to move in order to feel fulfilled. I help my patients understand and name these experiences. I provide support with issues related to mood disorders, life transitions, high stress school or work-related, relationship problems, breakups, loss and grief. I combine evidence-based techniques, mindfulness and psychodynamic approaches, ultimately working around your current struggles and at the same time examining any past history that might be affecting your present self.

Here is a brief explanation of the different approaches I might include in my approach to therapy based on the person’s need and goals.

Psychodynamic Approach

Psychodynamic therapy, also known as insight-oriented therapy, focuses on unconscious processes as they are manifested in a person’s present behavior. The goal of psychodynamic therapy are an increase in people’s self-awareness and understanding of the influence of the past on present behavior. A psychodynamic approach facilitates the client to examine unresolved conflicts and symptoms that arise from past dysfunctional relationships and manifest themselves in different symptoms and ways of suffering.

 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is a evidence-based, present-oriented psychotherapy directed toward solving current problems and teaching clients skills to modify dysfunctional thinking and behavior. Cognitive Behavior Therapy is based on the cognitive model: the way we perceive situations influences how we feel emotionally. So it is not a situation that directly impacts how people feel emotionally, but rather, their thoughts in that situation. When people are in distress, their perspective is often inaccurate and their thoughts may be unrealistic. Cognitive behavior therapy helps people identify their distressing thoughts and evaluate how realistic the thoughts are. Then they learn to change their distorted thinking. When they think more realistically, they feel better. The focused of this approach is also consistently on solving problems and initiating behavioral changes.

Prolonged Grief Treatment (CGT)

Grief is the natural response to losing a loved one. Most people don’t need grief therapists, even when the loss is sudden and very sad. At the same time, there are different factors that can alter the healing process. CGT is a treatment approach that is highly effective, short term and simple to manage.  CGT is one of the best ways to help people with persistent impairing grief.  The therapy is dedicated to helping people adapt to the loss, identifying and resolving grief complications and facilitating natural adaptive processes.

This approach facilitates understanding grief, managing painful emotions, thinking about the future, strengthening relationships, telling the story of the death, learning to live with reminders and remembering the person who died.