How I Practice Psychotherapy

I conduct an eclectic form of talk therapy based on my trainings and experience. My client sits in a chair or lies on a couch, and through our conversations we collaborate in a journey to discover her truth, resolve her concerns, and enable her to feel more complete in her life.

In our early meetings I seek to learn who my client is and how he understands the issues he has brought to therapy, and we discuss those concerns both by themselves and in light of other aspects of his life. As our work proceeds our conversations may examine both the apparent and the hidden causes that underlie the individual’s distress, so that unresolved conflicts and long-standing emotional wounds might be relieved and cease giving rise to new problems in the person’s daily life. How deeply we examine issues depends entirely on my client: some people do and some people do not wish to delve far below the surface of their lives, and I respect my clients’ limits.

Sometimes my clients keep journals, write stories, or make drawings for our sessions; sometimes we work with their dreams or fantasies; sometimes we discuss books, films, or other events that are pertinent. I do not give “homework” assignments, although I do occasionally make suggestions for activities my clients might undertake outside the office to enhance our work. As I have often said, my consulting office is the laboratory, but outside, in day-to-day activities and relationships, is the person’s real life.

Mine is a general psychotherapy practice with adult individuals and couples of all identities and orientations, who come from all walks of life. My clients are attorneys and firefighters, engineers and police officers, physicians and construction workers, sales personnel and managers, administrative assistants and CEOs, psychotherapists and sex workers, students and teachers, artists, writers, musicians, and accountants, and include many people in the BDSM, GLB, transgender, fetish, and polyamory communities – all areas in which I have taught, spoken, and/or published my own writings.

All human beings share some concerns and difficulties; in addition, groups of people who share similar profiles, such as parents or public figures, often have issues of their own. So also, people who have been characterized as outsiders in society may encounter unique difficulties that derive from the ways they are perceived by others. For example, the simple fact that some people live alternative spiritual, sexual, or gender lives frequently raises issues that affect their partners, parents, siblings, children, friends, colleagues, and business associates. I have experience helping people develop understandings and acceptance across these and other sorts of communication barriers.

I do not work with minors under the age of 18 years, or with people whose primary issues involve substance use, but I gladly refer to professional colleagues who do work in those areas.