What is your philosophy of therapy?
I carry with me a profound respect for the courage demonstrated by clients as they face
difficult problems in their lives. This courage has often gone
unrecognized. Often people come to me quite beaten down
by events in their lives and by a sense of somehow not quite measuring up. One of my
ambitions for therapy is to restore a sense of dignity to lives that have
been harmed in this way.
I also believe in being accountable for the
impact of my work on clients, and check in frequently to make sure the
directions we are taking are useful. I see it as my job to bring expertise
in reducing the power of problems in the lives of clients and to notice and elaborate the often overlooked ways
clients have already begun to create the kind of life they want.
At its best, I believe therapy is
not only about resolving the problem at hand, but about opening up
possibilities for living that were not previously visible.
What kinds of problems do you work with?
I work with a wide range of problems including conflict between
teenagers and parents; difficulties in couples who have begun to lose their connection to
each other; and individuals experiencing depression and anxiety. In
recent years I've become extremely interested in the often heroic ways
people construct meaningful lives in the face of chronic pain and illness.
Do you see Families? Couples? Individuals?
I
see families, couples and individuals. In the course of a therapy, I
will sometimes see different combinations of people in order to best
address the
problem, and to sustain momentum as changes begin to happen. I find
that problems rarely affect just one person, and in locating solutions, I
often try to mobilize the influential people in a client's life.
What is your background in therapy?
I trained extensively in family therapy,
including an internship at the California Pacific Medical Center's Family Therapy
Clinic in San Francisco, CA, and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto,
CA, one of the
founding sites of family therapy. At MRI I also became highly
interested in Narrative Therapy, which focuses on the way our sense of who
we are is shaped by the stories we
tell about ourselves and the stories others tell about us..
In addition to clinical work, I've taught courses in Family Systems, Narrative
Therapy and Clinical Supervision at the California School of Professional
Psychology in San Francisco. I've also taught Family Systems and Clinical
Supervision at Argosy University (now in Alameda, CA). In addition,
I've
provided training and live supervision to graduate students at the Family
Institute of Pinole in the San Francisco Bay area. Finally, I've
supervised graduate
students in psychology from a number of clinics in the Bay Area.
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What do you think makes for change in therapy?
I start from the position that
change is
constant.
This helps me stay vitally interested in things we do as
people that make problems less problematic.
If change is constant, it is critical to assist clients to notice the ways
they are influencing the direction of their lives, rather than attributing
changes to chance or luck. I also believe that people are
multi-storied--that even if someone comes in highly defined by a problem,
there are always other descriptions of who they are that can be
located and expanded. Finally, the course of change can be
uneven, and part of therapy involves anticipating setbacks and
sustaining hope in the face of reversals.
How do you arrange for payment?
I see clients who pay "out of pocket" as
well as those who use insurance. Paying
privately creates more flexibility in terms of how the problem will be
described and how often you will see a therapist. It also provides
greater privacy.
Of course an advantage to using insurance
is that the co-payment is less expensive than paying
for a visit out of pocket. I currently accept:
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
MultiPlan
PHCS
United Behavioral Health (UBH)
ValueOptions
Many insurance companies allow clients to
see therapists outside their network if the therapists submits a receipt,
however the co-payment is generally higher than it would be in seeing an
in-network provider.
Do you offer services in
addition to therapy?
I enjoy providing clinical supervision, and
I am currently working on a writing project describing ways of teaching
graduate students to be supervisors who bring forth the abilities of
their supervisees. I also have extensive experience in providing "live"
supervision and I provide training in the use of reflecting teams with
clients. In addition, I have taught for a number of years in
psychology graduate schools and look forward to returning to teaching in
the future, either in an educational or clinical setting.
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