style
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Psychodynamic therapy is a form of talk therapy based on the premise that our closest and oldest relationships impact us in ways that may not always be obvious. This is a longer-term, open-format style of working together that takes seriously the parts of ourselves and of our pasts that we don’t understand. Whereas some forms of therapy operate a bit like someone looking for their car keys under the streetlamp because that’s where the light shines, I think of psychodynamic therapy as a way of offering to hold a flashlight alongside you while we explore the rest of the parking lot and beyond. By doing so, we can encounter the deeper patterns that may be holding you back, and ultimately give you more choices in how you navigate and understand your life.
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) for OCD
Exposure and response prevention is the gold standard treatment for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and in my practice I combine this method with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which frames things in terms of pursuing your values and helping your life grow bigger—rather than smaller, as tends to happen when OCD is at its worst. In this work, we collaborate to identify your values, the core fears that get in the way of you pursuing them, and together we design exposure exercises and strategies to prevent the use of compulsions. In addition to being challenging, this work is often creative, fun, and exciting. We may do ERP as a standalone treatment, or as a stage within a larger psychodynamic therapy.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) for trauma
EMDR is a treatment that uses bilateral stimulation—which is just a fancy way of saying both sides of the body—to spur the brain into reprocessing traumatic memories so that they become less disruptive to your ability to adapt to and thrive in the present. This way of working is less focused on verbal processing and more on rewiring the brain “behind the scenes,” so to speak. Like most interventions, EMDR tends to work best when it is part of a secure and trusting therapeutic relationship, and I take this aspect very seriously when offering EMDR.