My clients and I enter into a relationship in which we begin a journey forward, both acknowledging the past, and embracing the future. My doctoral degree in German Philosophy and Literature and many years of teaching richly enhance my perspective and my work as a therapist. I draw from the humanistic and existential counseling traditions and strive toward empathically helping clients both accept and challenge themselves. Clients are encouraged to take an active role in the counseling process as we work toward uncovering and clarifying what brings meaning to their lives.

I use a wide variety of therapeutic strategies in order to best fit clients’ needs. Some of these strategies include brief, solution-focused work, cognitive-behavioral techniques, anger management skills, and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), which has a mindfulness component. My orientation is psychodynamic, experiential, and interpersonal. Working with couples, I draw heavily from Emotion Focused Couples Therapy, Collaborative Couples Therapy and Gottman methods.

My training as a couples, marriage and family therapist leads me to view client functioning in terms of relationships. Whether working individually or with partners or in family situations, I seek to understand and support clients while considering the relationships that they affect and in which they are affected. My goal is to help clients understand themselves better and bring forth a self that feels true and real. In the process my hope is that clients learn to ask for and receive what they need from others, embracing life and life’s challenges with restored courage, renewed spirit, and a sense of wholeness.