My general theoretical orientation tends towards psychodynamic perspectives, meaning I strive to develop an understanding of personality dynamics and the adaptive role they’ve played in your life. Even if your contemporary personality style takes you towards recurrent struggles, at one point it likely evolved in response to critically important influences. Essentially, as children, we all do what we can to manage the cards we’re dealt.

Beyond this developmental adaptive perspective, there are the genetic, social/environmental and neurobiologic influences that shape us all. This is especially the case with more biologically based illnesses such as bipolar disorder. For more in-depth discussion of bipolar-related treatment, see Specialized Services for Bipolar Disorder.

My general approach to most psychotherapy is to try to look beyond presenting symptoms and their situational correlates and to understand the broad range of influences (developmental and contemporary) affecting you at this point in time. Once we have a handle on that, our work is to try to determine what most needs our attention in order to bring about desired change.

Much of my training and expertise involves fairly in-depth psychotherapy, which is not necessarily quick. However, such may not be your intent or desire. What we do in therapy, the depth at which we work and how long it takes will depend upon your specific struggles, your motivation for change and your resources. These are things that will be discussed with you during our first few sessions.