A clinical psychologist in private practice here in Atlanta since 1979, I enjoy working with children, teens and adults on a variety of issues. Many seek my services because their best efforts to resolve a situation haven’t worked: Some want to learn to communicate better with a family member; some feel trapped in a job; some are wrestling with timeless questions about what gives their life meaning and purpose. These are just a few of the challenges people bring to work on in therapy with me.
Browse these pages to learn more about my approaches to helping people.
What kinds of therapy do I use?
I find it hard to condense my approaches to a few terms, though there are some common themes that characterize how I work. Here are a few, in no particular order:
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I'm a pragmatist: If it works, do it; don't form a committee.
I often look at things from a "family/systems" model. Like two kids on a see-saw, relationships involve balance. Sometimes life may feel as if you're the one in the down position, sometimes the other way around. Being stuck is often an illusion.
Since many people spend a lot of time in a kind of hypnotic “trance” anyway, (e.g., like a child staring at the TV) I like teaching people how to use self-hypnotic strategies more effectively for a variety of situations.
I find it much more useful to look at who can help resolve a problem rather than look at who is to blame for it.
I love using stories and metaphors to teach. This one appeared in Family Circle in late 2001.
I'm a linguist; that is, I pay careful attention to the impact of particular words. Many times, disagreements get started from the same few words. (For a preview, check out my book Great Ways to Sabotage a Good Conversation. You can read the first two chapters here on the web site.)
I value the use of humor as an antidote to many things such as power struggles and tunnel vision. (Click here for one example drawn from the book.)
Coincidences usually aren't.
I encourage clients to pay very careful attention to intuitive hunches. Intuition is usually much more reliable than the other senses. Fear, worry and anxiety are never part of an intuition.
I think our souls get many lifetimes, so one of my favorite sentences is this: “I give myself permission to (still) be a work in progress.”
I like to work myself out of a job quickly. In the process, I hope to give you more problem solving tools. To paraphrase from the philosophy at my undergraduate school, Carnegie-Mellon University, my job is not to tell you what to think, but to help you learn strategies for how to think.
I keep several wizards on my desk to remind me that while my (clinical) hunches are often on target, I don't read minds. Some presenting concerns lend themselves to brief therapy, defined as 6 - 12 sessions. Acute situations often respond fairly quickly; long-standing problems (e.g., poor self-worth, chronic depression) understandably take longer. How much longer? Ask me again after the fourth session and we'll compare impressions. Those first few sessions usually tell a lot.
The first session can take many forms. On rare occasions, I have had a client who came with a very specific issue that we resolved in a single session. Usually, though, the first meeting serves several purposes:
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I obtain a personal and family history so that I can better place the current problems in context. In the case of a child or teen, this helps me get a sense of whether it will be more effective to work primarily with the entire family, the parents and the child/teen, or predominantly with just the child/teen in individual therapy.
It serves as a time to further define just what you want from therapy. Two common questions I ask take the form of, "When you have accomplished what you came here to do, how will things be different? What will have changed in your life?"
The session gives both of us a chance to begin to confirm that we are a "good fit." In those rare situations where one or both of us believes it won't be a good fit, I can often suggest names of some other therapists that may be a better match based on what I learned about you in this session.
Most of my clients choose to meet once a week. When financial or scheduling constraints dictate, sessions are scheduled less often. A few meet twice a week when getting started or during a tough period.
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Many clients reduce the frequency of their sessions to once every other week for a few sessions before their final appointment. I sometimes playfully say that if I am staying on top of things well, I'll sense that you're about ready to wind down your therapy sessions about five minutes before you tell me.
A clinical psychologist in private practice here in Atlanta since 1979, I enjoy working with children, teens and adults on a variety of issues. Many seek my services because their best efforts to resolve a situation haven’t worked: Some want to learn to communicate better with a family member; some feel trapped in a job; some are wrestling with timeless questions about what gives their life meaning and purpose. These are just a few of the challenges people bring to work on in therapy with me.