Individual Counseling / Psychotherapy
Everyone has problems and challenges. Life can be very difficult. Even the most mentally healthy people, at times, experience a great deal of stress that can overwhelm their personal resources. From my perspective, counseling and psychotherapy provide valuable, and practical, education for living. Emotional development — as with learning new and more effective coping skills — is, to me, more important to gaining happiness and satisfaction in life than is intellectual development.
Almost all of what we learn in school and in our society is focused on intellectual development rather than on emotional development. A great majority of people have never had the opportunity to develop their potentials with regard to their emotional and psychological development.
One-to-one meetings with a counselor/ psychotherapist can provide the psychological environment necessary to help individuals gain valuable insight into themselves; this can pay great dividends in their quality of life.
I have been providing psychotherapy to individuals for over thirty years. I have worked with a very broad of people, and a very extensive range of “presenting problems” — those various and varied issues and problems that people bring in to their personal therapies for understanding and mastery.
The professional knowledge and experience, and self-growth I have accumulated over this time is a very valuable resource in my efforts to help my clients.
Below is a sampling of the kinds of issues and problems I have dealt with the people who have come to see me for my psychological assistance:
- Excessive anxiety (alone and/or in social situations)
- Depression
- Conflicts and dissatisfactions with family members (for example, with your partner, parents, children)
- Alcohol and other drug related difficulties
- Stresses in the workplace
- Obsessions and compulsions (that is, troubling, repeated thoughts and actions)
- Eating disorders
- Psychological complications as a result of medical problems and accidents
- “mid-life crisis”
- Adolescent adjustment problems
- Long-standing difficulties in daily living
- Acute and chronic mourning reactions (related to loss of relationship to people and/or pets)
- Loneliness
- Problems with self-esteem and confidence
- Financial concerns
- Sexual problems
- Adjustments to life stage changes — as to retirement, having a baby, getting married
- Problems with organizing and structuring one’s life, and with being productive
- Difficulties in school
- Difficulties with self’-care (for example, not getting enough and exercise; not paying sufficient attention to one’s medical problems)
- Feeling overwhelmed and not accomplishing enough, or not reaching one’s potentials in life
- Feeling apathetic, bored, and unmotivated with most aspects of life
- Feeling angry, disrespected, and/or easily slighted much of the time
- Concerns about your body
- Concerns about the relationship between your mind and body
- Often vague feelings and sensations that something (you can’t quite identify) is causing you to feel unhappy and dissatisfied with your life and lifestyle
If you don’t see on the (not comprehensive) list above the concerns and issues that match your motivations in thinking about seeking out professional therapeutic help, please call me. You are under no obligation in making this call. Our talking for a few minutes could help you determine if setting up a consultation appointment with me makes sense to you and seems to be in your best interests.
Meeting with a psychotherapist, for many people, is a very important decision. Much is at stake in this encounter. It is so important to have a sense of comfort, fit, and trust in talking with a “stranger” about personal (and sometimes intimate) issues. Reading what a psychotherapist or counselor (or any other service provider) writes on a website, or elsewhere, can be very different from actually talking and meeting with that individual, and getting to know them.
Different therapists have different theoretical and technical approaches in conducting their craft. And even those therapists who have similar ways of working — at least on “paper,” — can have very different personality styles. So, as in so many other areas of life, it is important to weigh carefully the advantages and disadvantages, the pros and cons, of collaborating with one therapist over another.
