Any psychotherapy experience begins with a patient’s personal circumstances and reasons for seeking help.  I work with my patients to establish their goals for treatment, so that I can tailor an approach to their personal needs.  Treatment may involve learning specific techniques that help patients to manage difficulties, and it may also involve an exploration of the roots of the difficulty.

Techniques for managing specific conditions (often referred to as cognitive behavioral therapies) generally focus on taking behaviors which are outside of our control and helping us to bring them within our control.  For example, a cognitive behavioral approach to anxiety would involve increasing the awareness of how and when anxiety develops and how our thinking style contributes to the anxiety.  Anxiety management involves combining this greater awareness with learning skills that help reduce anxiety.

Exploring the sources of the difficulty, or insight-oriented therapy (often referred to as psychodynamic therapy)  involves developing a greater understanding of the coping styles we have developed in our environments and relationships.  Based on our personal experiences, we all develop patterns of responding to people and events.  Psychotherapy helps us to become aware of the patterns in our behaviors, to distinguish helpful from unhelpful patterns, and to explore other possible ways of adapting to our situations. 

These different approaches to treatment (cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic) are suitable in different situations, and are frequently combined so that patients can learn tools for managing difficulties as well as gaining deeper understanding of themselves that can lead to profound change.  In either case, therapist and patient are both actively engaged in the process. 

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.