|
MY
PRACTICE EMPHASIS
Psychotherapy
offers individuals the opportunity to enhance the quality of
their lives through a collaborative process. In a supportive
environment individuals experience insight to situations that
have brought about feelings of discontent or lack of success
in the past, whether they be relational, career, or financial.
Psychotherapy brings our unconscious patterns to conscious awareness,
allowing us to understand current situations from a newly informed
place within. The result is growth, change, and success.
I
provide psychotherapy for individuals, couples, families, and
children, bringing to the latter the richness of my 16-year
background in education. As an educator, I became aware of how
emotional difficulties impact children by preventing them from
progressing academically and actualizing their potential. Additionally,
the emphasis of my experience as a psychotherapist has been
with families in crisis, individuals or children suffering from
or experiencing trauma, and individuals feeling the challenges
of life transitions.
My
orientation is in depth psychodynamic psychotherapy. Collaboratively
we begin to understand ways in which our internal messages and
perceptions cause us to repeat situations that create uncomfortable
and intolerable feelings such as sadness, hopelessness, anxiousness,
disappointment, despair, anger or fear. Therapeutically we think
through the origins of these patterns, and observe their new
editions in current life. New understandings and interpretations
provide for psychological shifts. This gives birth to the space
where fulfillment, joy, and success can be achieved.
I
offer long term intensive psychotherapy as well as brief and
short term treatment, depending on the circumstances, situation,
and desire of the client. Together the client and I determine
the goals and the length of our work during our first consultative
appointment, with periodic reevaluations. I offer a broad range
of fees and accept most insurances. My office is located in
Brentwood, and is easily accessible from both the 405
Freeway and Interstate 10. Please feel free to contact me if
you have any further questions.
Children
and Adolescents:
| During
my years as an educator, I came to see the desperate need
children have for emotional support, without which, they
are unable to reach academic and personal goals. |
|
Now in facilitating parenting discussions in therapy, I have been
finding that participants often worry about what is happening
in our families and society as a whole to create so much alienation
and disconnection of our young people. Questions are raised around
what can we do and what are the warning signs of a troubled youth?
Just as adults go through a variety of emotions, so do children.
When troublesome events happen in a child's life, they have a
reaction. Many times there is not an outlet for a child to deal
with his/her feelings.
Circumstances
such as divorce in a family, death of a family member, or illness
of one of the parents can be devastating for children. Children
may also be in situations where there is violence in the home,
alcoholism, or child abuse. Despite a parent's best efforts,
a child may begin to have intolerable feelings of anger, rage,
frustration, sadness, guilt, or disappointment. Without intervention
at this point, the child becomes a high risk for worrisome and
destructive behaviors.
Signals
that a child is in need of emotional support are:
- Decline
in grades
- Disruptive
behaviors at school or home
- Angry
acting out behavior such as hitting or fighting
- Lack
of respect for authority
- Isolating
- Feelings
of hopelessness and despair
- Change
in eating or sleeping habits
- Anxiousness
and/or fidgety behavior
- Drug
or alcohol use
|
|
Important:
If your family is going through a crisis, pay close
attention to your child and help your child talk about
the feelings he/she is experiencing. If it is emotionally
too difficult for you, it would be wise to look for professional
help during a time of crisis, sooner rather than later.
|
Sometimes
parental "coaching" is helpful. Some of
the areas in which parents find help:
- Co-parenting
through separation or divorce
- Developmentally
attuning parental expectations for children/adolescents
- Addressing
ways parents learn how to contain and set limits
- Finding
tools to deal with one's own frustration and anger/coming
to understand your angry reaction to a child
- Creative
ways to deal with kids that do not want to talk, but need
containing, limit setting, and rewards
- Maintaining
family connection with an adolescent child
- Distinguishing
the troubled child in the "troublemaker"
- Understanding
and treating childhood depression
|
