My Approach To Therapy

I draw from a range of therapeutic systems—psychodynamic, humanistic, existential, cognitive, and mindfulness-based approaches—but I don’t subscribe to any single technique. Instead, I work by entering your world, learning with you how it all fits together, and helping you rewrite the programming that no longer serves you. 

The story of modern therapy begins with two very different visions of the human mind. Freud saw the unconscious as a vault of repressed desires and early wounds. Our dreams, to him, were disguises for hidden wishes. Life, in Freud’s map, is a negotiation between instinct and society—a struggle to manage conflict and avoid suffering. His is the voice of caution: man as a tragic figure wrestling with his own drives. Jung saw the unconscious as not only personal but collective—a shared field of archetypes and timeless patterns that surface in dreams and life events. He believed each we are all living out our own personal myth, a path of growth and transformation, where therapy becomes a workshop for the larger story that you’re writing for yourself. 

Where Freud sought to unearth the past and heal the wounds, Jung invited us into a journey of meaning. He believed that we are all on a path of personal individuation, a hero’s journey toward wholeness. In my work, I draw from both sources. I think it’s important to understand the past and the patterns that shaped you, but that work becomes more useful when it creates space for you to take ownership and authorship of your life story. Therapy is not only a place to heal; it is a place to discover meaning and to step into the next chapter of your own journey.

After the development of psychoanalytic theory, a new school of thought emerged. According to cognitive theory, the mind struggles to hold contradictory ideas because humans are motivated to maintain consistency and harmony within their belief system and between their beliefs and actions. The clash between two seemingly conflicting elements creates mental tension. The discomfort associated with this clash is referred to as "cognitive dissonance."  This discomfort often leads people to develop unhealthy responses to stress such as reliance on defense mechanisms (i.e. denial, avoidance). The excessive reliance on defense mechanisms can exacerbate pre-existing psychological symptoms or lead to the creation of new ones. The excessive reliance on defense mechanisms can also exacerbate internal fragmention: the "self" splits into different discrete parts as a way of attempting to avoid dealing with contradiction. Emotions are shoved down. Thoughts and actions become disconnected. We may act in ways that don’t fully align with what we believe or what we truly need. Life feels divided. This internal fragmentation is often experienced as emptiness, confusion, or feeling “cut off” from one’s own life. The cost of constant self-protection is that we can no longer access our full vitality, creativity, and capacity for authentic connection.

If you don't create an organizational system for your mind, it will be like a hoarder's room. When the mind is not structured in an intentional way, a makeshift framework emerges.  These frameworks can become rigid over time. Over-control, under-control, cycles of excess and collapse are not signs of failure, but of a system attempting to self-regulate in the absence of personally meaningful internal law. 

Most psychological perspectives hold that all actions, even seemingly spontaneous ones, are ultimately guided by underlying motivations. These motivations can be conscious or unconscious, intrinsic or extrinsic, and can vary in complexity. Sometimes people attempt to suppress their motivations for their actions because they are uncomfortable with whatever they think the motivation says about them. I think it's important to raise awareness of all motivations, understand where they come from, discard the ones that no longer serve, and choose value-based governing laws rather than allowing oneself to be carried by unconcious drivers. 

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Some clients arrive with a clear problem: anxiety, relational struggles, self-doubt, emotional dysregulation. Others come with questions, patterns, or a sense that something essential is missing. Whatever brings you in, I take the surface content as a reflection of an internal system of logic that can be decoded, understood, and ultimately restructured. In my work, I help clients recognize the repetitive cognitive and emotional patterns that stem from early relational experiences. We examine how these patterns shape your expectations of others, your beliefs about yourself, and the behaviors that seem to emerge automatically.

I also work with clients to develop the capacity for dialectical reasoning—the ability to hold multiple truths at once, to tolerate inner contradiction, and to extract meaning from paradox. This process helps reduce rigidity in thinking, tempers extreme self-judgment, and creates space for more flexible, authentic responses to life.

Finally, I teach mindful observation as a practical skill. You learn how to watch your thoughts, feelings, and impulses as they arise, without collapsing into them or pushing them away. This allows for clearer decision-making, stronger boundaries, and a more grounded sense of self.

This is not formulaic work. It is layered, collaborative, and rooted in curiosity. Together, we identify what is driving your current experience—and then we begin the work of untangling it, not to erase the past, but to make room for new ways of living.

I don’t offer a step-by-step guide for getting better. I offer a mirror. 

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If you want to learn more about the specific theories of psychotherapy that I pull from, please visit the dedicated sub-pages where I provide a brief description of theoretical ideas and how I incorporate these ideas into my practice.