I view therapy as a partnership between us. Psychotherapy is not like visiting a medical doctor. It requires your very active involvement. It requires your best efforts to change thoughts, feelings and behaviors. For example, I want you to tell me about important experiences, what they mean to you, and what strong feelings are involved. This is one of the ways you are an active partner in therapy.

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I expect us to plan our work together. In our treatment plan we will list the areas to work on, our goals, the methods we will use, the time and money commitments we will make, and some other things. I expect us to agree on a plan that we will both work hard to follow. From time to time, we will look together at our progress and goals. If we think we need to, we can then change our treatment plan, its goals, or its methods.

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An important part of your therapy will be practicing new skills that you will learn in our sessions. I will ask you to practice outside our meetings, and we will work together to set up home practice for you. You will probably have to work on relationships in your life and make long-term efforts to get the best results. These are important parts of personal change. Change will sometimes be easy and quick, but it can also be slow and frustrating, and you will need to keep trying. Therapy can also bring up some painful, difficult feelings. There are no instant, easy cures and no "magic pills." However you can learn new ways of looking at your problems that will be helpful for improving your feelings, reactions, and quality of life.

Therapy Timeline

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The first one or two sessions will mainly involve answering your questions about therapy and collecting information about you. Usually by the end of our first or second session, I will tell you how I see your case at this point and discuss with you how we should proceed.

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Most of my clients see me once a week for 45-60 minutes for 3 to 4 months. After that we meet less often for several more months. Therapy then usually comes to an end. The process of ending therapy, called "termination," can be a very valuable part of our work. Stopping therapy should not be done casually, although either of us may decide to end it if we believe it is in your best interest. If you wish to stop therapy at any time, I will ask that you agree to meet for at least one more session to review our work together. We will review our goals, the work we have done, any future work that needs to be done, and our choices. If you would like to take a "time out" from therapy to try it on your own, we should discuss this. We can often make such a "time out" be more helpful.

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Specific Approaches

 

My therapeutic approaches include the evidence-based treatments knows as Behavioral Therapy (BT), Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Motivational Interviewing (MI), and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). For couple counseling I employ heavily researched approaches known as the Gottman Method Couples Therapy, developed by John Gottman, Ph.D. and Julie Schwartz Gottman, Ph.D., and Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, developed by Sue Johnson, Ph.D.

Behavioral and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (BT and CBT)
Motivational Interviewing (MI)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)