Psychodynamic Therapy

This therapy is work that goes beyond problem-solving. 

Most therapeutic approaches orient toward measurable goals, reducing symptoms, challenge unhelpful thoughts, instilling healthy coping strategies. While there’s nothing wrong with these approaches, the risk becomes that the treatment rests on the assumption that our minds and psyches can be reduced to surface-level problems. Inconvenient issues that can be solved through the application of coping strategies. 

Psychodynamic therapy starts from a different premise. We are strangers to ourselves, shaped by motives, drives, hopes and dreads outside of conscious awareness. Much of how we come to understand our sense of self, our relationship patterns, and our worldviews originates in places we don’t have direct access to. Our early life experiences live on not as memories so much as ways of being. They inform what we come to expect from others, what we believe to be true about ourselves, which feelings we can tolerate and which we push away. From this perspective, symptoms are solutions, the signature of all we have survived, and not just problems to be solved.

The work in psychodynamic therapy is not to fix our patterns or erase our symptoms, but to create the conditions where we can begin to listen to and understand them. From this place of curiosity and openness, new levels of insight, growth, and experience emerge.

  • I generally meet with my patients once a week, and sometimes more frequently. Together, we will collaborate to establish an intentional frequency of sessions that allows for the development of continuity and depth during and between sessions. When therapy goes well, you’ll begin to notice things occurring in the space between sessions. Patterns that were unconscious will become illuminated. 

    I approach sessions with no defined structure, no agendas. I don’t offer worksheets, and I don’t provide homework. This allows a freedom and spaciousness for you to bring in whatever is on your mind. We might work with a dream, a difficult interaction you had with someone, a memory, something you can’t stop thinking about, or nothing at all. We’ll be with what is (or isn’t) happening, without the need to label anything as good or bad, right or wrong. 

    Much of what becomes meaningful in this work happens within the therapy relationship itself. How you experience me, how we experience one another, what patterns get enacted between us, all have their place within our work together. Noticing these patterns and the way they play out in the room is often the most direct path toward what it is about you and your psychology we are trying to understand.

  • People well suited for this type of work tend to be curious about their inner lives. They can recognize the limitations of treatment approaches oriented toward symptom management. My patients are seeking to understand themselves more deeply, and are willing to tolerate the discomfort that such insight can bring. Many have been in therapy before, and found it helpful up to a certain point. Others are new to therapy, but have long known that they need something more than advice, coaching, or coping strategies. 

    While people come to me with a broad spectrum of presentations, I have special interest in working with other therapists and clinicians.

    Wherever you are, you don’t need to know exactly what you want to focus on. An openness to the process and a willingness to commit is enough to begin.

  • Psychodynamic therapy is not short-term work. It takes a long time to get to know oneself, to understand one’s mind. It is a process that can’t be rushed, and will often only be slowed if we do try to hurry. Most people work with me for a year or longer. The investment of time, energy, and money is significant. 

    Research shows the effects of psychodynamic therapy can be long-lasting, continuing even beyond the end of treatment. 

    For the right type of person, it's the type of work that won’t just change how you feel, but will transform how you see yourself. The ripple effects this can have on one’s life, work, and relationships are profound.


  • I generally don’t offer structured, time-limited, skills-focused forms of therapies, and am happy to offer referrals for people seeking support with the following issues or treatment types:

    • ADHD

    • OCD

    • Substance use and addictions

    • EMDR

    • DBT

    • Couples therapy

    • ESA letters

    • Psychiatric assessments

    • Court-mandated treatment