An initial consultation is scheduled to introduce ourselves, to talk about your needs and to talk about your intentions for therapy. I'll share my assessment with you and discuss a preliminary course of therapy as a starting point.
Brief Therapy
When problems are pressing and resources and time for therapy are limited, a brief therapy with a clear focus may be helpful for you. Brief therapy is strategic and can help you feel more in control of your day to day life. This approach will help you become more effective managing and coping with stress and will bring about a clearer perspective.
Depth Therapy
If some areas of your life are going well enough, yet your life isn't as productive, meaningful or as satisfying as you expect, you might consider an exploratory therapy. You might have tried to understand the limitations in your life on your own in a number of different ways. Perhaps identifying and talking about recurring patterns in your life has brought to light how unresolved issues affect your life and your relationships. Thinking about your difficulties might have helped, and now you feel ready to settle into yourself and discover what comes next for you. This complex work requires a skillful, trained and experienced therapist.
A psychoanalytic psychotherapy is designed to explore and make use of what is outside of your awareness, yet which contributes to recurring difficulties. Gaining an in depth understanding of yourself is achieved by closely attuning to our therapeutic relationship, the use of language, the ideas and sensations born of mind and body, dreams, memories and your emotions. We can learn a lot about how habits contribute to your life in unwanted, limiting or disruptive ways. This type of therapy will help you work through issues and reveal new ways of living and relating.
This approach may be a good choice if you're curious about yourself and others, if you are willing to learn to tolerate some discomfort for the purpose of working in depth, and if you've tried less intensive therapy without sustained results. This work is an effective therapy and the gains you make in this work bring growth and changes that sustain even after our work together is completed.