About Me and My Psychotherapy Practice

What I Do and How I Got That Way

I have a psychodynamic, psychoanalytic approach, which means that I help you explore the shifting world of processes underneath your everyday thoughts and actions. This is the world of the unconscious, of dreams, daydreams and fantasies, of wishes, hopes and fears, of fleeting bits of thoughts and feelings hardly remembered. I will encourage you to direct your attention to the way you have been shaped by your relationships with important early caregivers and the way you are now being shaped in the present moment. This work can help you find a sense of wholeness and increased flexibility in facing the challenges of your life. Not only can it help you make the changes you need to make and want to make, it can help you accept the changes that life brings your way with more clarity and calm.

mindfulness and psychoanalytic psychotherapy

When appropriate, I try to introduce my clients to the practice of mindfulness — a relaxed, alert attention to whatever is happening in the present moment. I use the experience I have gained from over thirty-five years of meditation training with teachers from different traditions. As I sit with you, I try to bring this experience into my work. I find the stance of mindful awareness to be a rich complement to my years of training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. When psychotherapy is going well, both you and I can be alert, open, and attentive to whatever might arise in our minds or in the relationship between us. In this space, healing happens in a manner that evolves in the moment. As you develop alertness and openness in our sessions, you may slowly find yourself facing life outside therapy in the same way.

… both you and I can be alert, open, and attentive to whatever might arise in our minds or in the relationship between us. In this space, healing happens in a manner that evolves in the moment.Psychology was not my first career. I studied mathematics at Harvard and at Columbia and then taught at different levels. I worked with disturbed teenagers at alternative schools and found myself doing more coaching, counseling, and comforting than teaching math. I spent many years as a photographer, trying to get my subjects to reveal something — perhaps something unexpected even to them. I spent ten years working with a hospice organization, learning a lot about myself, about the preciousness of life, and about grief and loss. I continued my service work by teaching meditation and stress reduction at the San Francisco County Jails and at San Quentin Prison. As you can imagine, some of the lessons I learned inside those walls about the meaning of freedom were invaluable.

I received my doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. My doctoral research on hospice volunteers is called, Working With the Dying: Compassion, Shame, and the Illusion of Loss. It includes the stories of people whose lives have clearly been enriched by their encounter with the challenge of grief and multiple losses. I interned with the Marin County Community Mental Health Services (CMHS); I trained at Richmond Area Multi-Services (RAMS) in San Francisco, a model clinic for providing service to a multi-cultural community, and with the Community Institute for Psychotherapy (CIP) in San Rafael.

During my training, I led a group using Dialectical Behavior Therapy, a method based on the practice of mindfulness to help ease extremely troubled mental states. I also led a group for widows and widowers. I visited elders regularly at their homes, providing therapy or doing assessments for Adult Protective Services. I also worked with Psychological Emergency Services, helping people face some of the most harrowing crises of their lives.

I continue my life-long learning with extensive training at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. I currently supervise interns at CIP. I led training for interns on the role of shame in our development at CIP and CMHS, and I lecture publicly on the interplay between Zen and psychotherapy.

The human connection offered by a dedicated and skilled healer has a long history as a powerful way to stimulate the changes we need in our lives. If you feel that you are ready to explore the possibility of change in your life, I'm sure that I can help you to get started. Contact me and we can explore that possibility together.

member:

• Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
• Marin County, California and American Psychological Associations
• Community Member of the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis
  

insurance:

• Medicare provider
• MHN
• If you want, I will submit a bill to your insurance company if I am not in your provider network. Call me to inquire.