Over the past two decades, I have worked with and helped countless women, men and couples dealing with anxiety, depression, relationship problems, job stress, sexual compulsions, sexual identity confusion, underachievement, and the effects of a history of emotional, physical or sexual abuse or alcoholism in their families. I have worked as well with those who are recovering from alcoholism and other forms of substance abuse.

I am also the co-author, with psychologist Dr. Helene Brenner, of I Know I’m in There Somewhere: A Woman’s Guide to Finding Her Inner Voice and Living A Life of Authenticity, published in 2003 by Gotham Books.

My roots as a therapist go back to the 1970s with the Human Potential Movement. My strongest influence has been the work of psychologist Dr Eugene Gendlin, who developed the mind-body technique of Focusing, and especially Dr. Ann Weiser Cornell who developed Inner Relationship Focusing, an especially powerful method of applying Dr. Gendlin's work.
   
I have also learned from and been influenced by the work of Dr. Diana Fosha, who developed Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP); Dr. Bruce Ecker, developer of Coherence Therapy, and many others. For my work with couples I am most indebted to Susan Jacobson, developer of Emotion-Focused Marital Therapy.

My work is grounded in experiential and attachment-based theory. This approach is at the cutting edge of the last 15 years of brain research, which has shown that people act irrationally when they are triggered by very deep and powerful feelings that, at an unconscious level, tell the person that his or her very survival is in danger. When your survival feels that threatened, no amount of changing your thinking is going to make a difference for long.

I help people understand and work through those deep feelings so as to defuse and transform them. When that happens, changing your thinking and behavior becomes much easier. For more on how I work, click to my How I Work page here.