"We tell ourselves stories in order to live." -- Joan Didion, The White Album

Welcome. There are many different therapists and different ways of working. The relationship fit between you and your therapist will play a large part in what you get out of your therapy, so here I'd like to tell you a little bit more about how I approach therapy. For more about the specific types of treatment I offer, please see here. 

People often consider starting therapy at a moment where it feels like something needs to change. You may know this feeling and have a sense that you'd like something to be different: perhaps within yourself, a relationship, or your career. 

In order to best understand how I approach therapy, I reference the work of the writer Joan Didion, who uses the word "stories" to describe the narratives each of us creates as we go through the world. These stories result from cultural norms, existing injustices and prejudices with which we live, and our own unique interpretations of people and situations that often are often modeled on how people close to us may have understood the world. I've found that understanding these stories is an important part of addressing the problems we experience.

After all, in many cases, we intellectually know the answers to certain problems with which we struggle, and yet something prevents us from taking the needed steps toward change or taking better care of ourselves. Why? That's where being open to exploring the stories you tell yourself can help. Understanding the way that you see yourself, see others, and see the world can be very enlightening when it comes to getting yourself un-stuck.

Why do these stories matter so much, and why I am talking about them as it relates to how I approach therapy?

To answer that question, I offer Ernest Hemingway's Iceberg Theory, sometimes known, as The Theory of Omission. He often said in stories, characters present the tip of the iceberg, but what was really going on with a character went unseen, like the giant body of the iceberg, invisible to the eye and, yet, without it, there would be no tip.

The stories we tell ourselves often function in the same way. We see the tip of the iceberg in specific problems, challenges, and relationships, but we may be helped by expanding our focus to what is beneath the water, things we may imagine are unrelated and yet are so much a part of why we are having these specific challenges.

Like the body of the iceberg, people usually don't see the stories they tell themselves anymore because they are in the background; moreover, the longer a particular story has been with you, the more likely it is you've come to think of it as a truth -- an immovable base, as opposed to a belief, interpretation, or possibility. 

As your therapist, I'll work with you to explore where you find yourself in this moment by identifying the stories you tell yourself about who you are, who think you can (or can't) be, and why you believe you are where you are. 

In this way, we will work to not only find solutions to the problems you may have brought to therapy, but you will also discover that your specific stories have played a crucial role in shaping you and in your negotiation of different events and situations, especially those that may have felt beyond your control or power.

In therapy, you may discover that certain old stories no longer apply. By exploring what is under the daily problems you experience, you may find that stories that were once helpful, adaptive, or even life-saving are now limiting or confining.  In working together, we will explore how you see yourself, how you imagine others see you, and we will be curious together about what you want and who you want to be. In that way, the hope is that you will not only leave with a better understanding of the specific problems you may have brought but also a better understanding of yourself, allowing for a greater sense of personal freedom, self-understanding, and self-expression moving forward.