Overcoming anxiety and other emotional blocks can be challenging on your own. In my work with artists and other creative people, it seems there is often this type of struggle with anxiety, sometimes directly in performance anxiety and other times in a more general way, like in social situations. Working through stuck places in a relationship or your career can be equally difficult without support. If you are a creative person or are seeking a mind-body-spirit approach, I may be a good fit for you. Creative people generally find my use of metaphor, archetype, and image resonates with them. If you would like, we can explore dreams, myths, and world religions to draw a deeper understanding of your self and your own story. By exploring the stories you tell yourself, the roles you take on in your work or personal life, and the perspectives of the other "actors" in your life, we can see you as an individual in the context of their life. In this way, there is no need to judge, but rather, together we can understand how your choices made sense and find new directions for you. COUPLES WORK Relationships are challenging and often end up being the Kryptonite that can bring the best of us down. Most people I work with have success in their work life, and many find that setting and achieving goals is almost second nature. If only relationships worked like that! When these same clients learn how relationships work and get a bit of objectivity with new perspectives, they find relationships CAN be done. Marriage Counseling, relationship work, or individual work is really all about figuring out "what you want," and then getting support in that process of change and growth. Some couples are needing to learn better communication skills in order to lower conflict or to strengthen and deepen a connection. I can coach you in couple sessions or longer "intensive" sessions. Same sex couples are welcome in my practice and classes. If you are ready to gain energy towards the achievement of your goals, please call me. Together we can explore the best way to work.

I appreciate your courage for the act of seeking counseling. You may be suffering from the effects of one or more of the following: stress, depression, anxiety, grief and loss, anger, life transition, divorce, suicide ideation, etc. Clients come to counseling for many different reasons. No two clients are the same. You may be considering counseling for the following reason: Your life as you know it has become unmanageable. You have exhausted the solutions that you have used in the past and are willing to seek out a new direction. The good news is that you are not alone in your circumstances. Many people struggle. And there are improvements that can be made to increase your quality of daily living. Increased well-being is always the goal. We achieve that by addressing the follow areas: identifying personal strengths growing in person self-compassion building healthy coping mechanisms Often, we will talk about your life values, discuss personal responsibility, being mindfulness of your thought patterns, defining meaning in life and discovering purpose. The result is typically that you will begin to notice that you are living your life past simply surviving. Living your life on a more profound level is also a goal. Sessions are in part based on the counseling method Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which falls into the category of "mindfulness", "awareness" and "acceptance" of cognitive thinking. My clients come from all walks of life and have varying life experiences. I welcome diversity of any kind and clients that come from any level of their own self-awareness and discovery. All we need is a place to begin and I honor that we all need to start somewhere.

Couples, sex and food problems are my specialties. With over 30 years training and experience as a therapist, I treat couples with intimacy, sexuality, communication, and infidelity problems. I treat eating disorders,sexual addiction (including pornography use), anxiety and depression. I am a certified weight loss specialist and hold an advanced certification in problematic sexual behavior and certification in systemic sex therapy with couples. I am extensively trained in body focused action approaches, hypnotherapy, brief solution focused therapy, and many couples approaches including Gottman and Imago, and EFT. I am presently completing my first book on compulsive food problems and compulsive sexuality and how both problems should be treated with a similar approach in order to have therapeutic results. If you are undecided about your relationship I will work with each of you to make a sound decision concerning your relationship and the best course of action for you both. I believe that all couples can find renewed passion and learn to live peacefully together. We can learn to love again even if we feel that love is presently non-existant between us. It is never too late to heal a relationship and resolve past wounds that have occurred within an intimate relationship. Intimate relationships bring deeper meaning into our lives, the conflict within them is there to help us grow and transform us into positive more selfless people. This is why I feel all relationships hit a difficult impasse at some point in time. If this is your time, it is your opportunity to grow and become a more caring, confident and empowered individual.