PHILOSOPHY

Therapy is a place to discover and actualize your strengths, and to learn skills to understand and manage to your best advantage your emotions, thoughts and behaviors. This will allow you to steer your life in the desired direction and to learn to be as happy as you can be, now and forever. It is also a place to resolve specific issues such as phobias, trauma, or insomnia, which have been making you miserable and thwarting your potential for contentment. It’s the biggest gift you can give yourself.

Both traditional and innovative treatment modalities have great merit and use. I select treatment approaches based on what has been bothering you and what you want to achieve. This to me is the core of assessment: not giving you a diagnosis, but figuring out where you want to be and what train to get on to get there. No matter which train we get onto, I will consistently check in with you/ask for your feedback and I will listen very carefully. You know yourself better than anybody else and you know how what we are doing is impacting you.

I aim to be respectful of the resources that you invest in therapy: your time, your money, your energy. Thus, I always strive for the briefest treatment to achieve your goals. Length will vary from the incredibly brief model of Rapid Resolution Therapy (3-5 sessions on average), to the more extended attention people need when dealing with chronic illness, but even then, my objective is always for you not to need me.

I am a strong believer in coordination of care. Years of work on medical teams have shown me what difference collaboration makes in outcome. Your goals and presenting concern will determine the level of coordination of care that is useful and appropriate. For example if we are looking at insomnia, consultation with one or more of your physicians will likely be necessary.

MODALITIES

While drawing from a vast array of theoretical frameworks and techniques, the modalities I use more often are the following:

Solution Focused Therapy
This approach is close to my heart as it places the focus on envisioning the future you want, not the problem you are having. Amazingly, many times, there’s very little that one needs to know about the problem in order to get to a solution. By steering all the transformative energy of therapy towards the goals you have, the strengths you can build on, and the successes that are already in action, change happens in an easier and quicker way. For more: www.sfbta.org

Cognitive Behavior Therapy
The idea at the root of this method is that the way we think about things results in emotions and behaviors. Therefore, we can bring about change by addressing thoughts and beliefs that have not been helpful. This approach is very practical and geared at helping you understand how to break patterns of unproductive thinking and gain skills you can use even when therapy is finished. It typically involves techniques you will practice in real life to effect change. In other words: expect homework

CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia)
This is the treatment of choice for chronic insomnia according to the American College of Physicians, read more. Research shows that in the short term it is as effective as medications, while in the long term, i.e. after treatment completion, it exceeds the effectiveness of medications. In other words CBT-I can result in good sleep without medications. This is a structured program geared at modifying the thoughts, behaviors, and physiological responses which perpetuate insomnia. The average length of treatment is about 8 sessions. In most cases the core part of treatment is behavioral, which means I will teach you behaviors to implement in the home setting.

In addition, CBT-I also typically reduces nightmares and may also be an adjunct treatment for Periodic Limb Movement Disorder and Restless Leg Syndrome when medication alone is not sufficient.

Rapid Resolution Therapy (RRT)
READ MORE ABOUT RRT