Psychoanalysis

Counseling and Psychotherapy

Therapy is creating a safe space to strengthen your relationship with yourself so that you can persist, work through and overcome any of life's challenges. Though I enjoy working across the spectrum of mental health and wellness, I offer a specialization in helping children and adults to cope with and thrive through Anxiety and Trauma.

Call today to schedule an appointment!

Areas of Focus

Anxiety, Anger, Trauma or PTSD, Childhood Abuse or Neglect, Depression, Life Transitions, Relationships, LGBTQI, Parenting, Sleep, Stress Management, Recovery from Substance Abuse

Expertise

Trauma, Co-Occurring Disorders, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Relational Psychotherapy

Your Investment

“When we cannot find a way of telling our story, our story tells us"

--Stephen Grosz, Love's Labor (2026)

If you've ever tried to learn a new language, you might have heard the term that you have to "use it or lose it". Psychoanalysis is an experience of learning about your self, and does rely on a consistent rhythm as the phrase suggests. However, it's also true that we never really "lose" our "lessons learned" - childhood memories, emotions, beliefs, even and especially when they're not on our conscious mind. In fact, our cognitive brain and conscious awareness is often the least powerful part of our body-mind-brain self.

Psychoanalysis is an opportunity to understand the parts of our experience that we might not be consciously aware of, that may nevertheless drives our behavior and tells our stories for us. This becomes obvious when we are faced with certain conflicts - "I want a relationship, but it's hard for me to find one" or "I have depression but don't know why - I have a good life" or "I can't stop turning on and off the lights, and I don't know why". Many come to analysis when they've tried other treatments that have used "interventions" targeted at the symptom - but often, the "symptom" returns, or transitions into another taxing expression. Psychoanalysis invites a going beneath the behavior to understand the experience with more complexity.

A frequency of sessions - typically three times a week - supports a sense of safety and security and the possibility for opening into the many dimensions of our self: cognitive, behavioral, relational, emotional, somatic, physiological, as well as different self states and consciousness. This deepening and opening invites powerful connection to our fullest and most vital self. There is also great relief in connecting with our full being - realizing that we don't have to fear our internal world and that we can just be - in our most expansive, creative way. This process of learning together - of reorganizing from the inside out - births the possibility to tell our stories instead of watching our stories tell us.

FAQs:

Who seeks out psychoanalysis? All different people come to psychoanalysis for all different reasons! Those who have tried other types of therapy and may have even found some relief, but who want more. People who are stuck in painful, repeating patterns. People who have been labeled as "treatment resistant". People who suffer from the internal impact of traumatic experience and want to gift themselves with an opportunity to feel safe, secure and connected from the inside-out. People who have become parents and want to understand and seek freedom from painful intergenerational patterns for themselves and their children/future generations. Therapists who wish to have a greater capacity to hold emotional pain for themselves and with the people who entrust them with their care. Academics and creatives who are interested in connecting more deeply with their creativity. Psychoanalysis is no longer an ivory tower - it is for anyone who wants it.

Can psychoanalysis help with trauma? Yes. Although psychoanalysis has had a dark history with trauma work, contemporary analytic thinkers have attempted to re-integrate historic and foundational figures like Ferenczi, who have long been on the cutting edge of trauma work. I am a committed member of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, and to the space in-between psychoanalysis and traumatology. Psychoanalysis isn't about techniques or scripts, like many other modalities DBR, EMDR, IFS, etc.. Instead, psychoanalysis is about you - you in relationships, your development and growth as a person, and connecting with your self and understanding the impacts of trauma experience and the ways in which trauma may have thwarted parts of your self and relational development. Above all, it is a reclamation of safety - from body to mind, mind to body, inside out to outside in. I often integrate Hypnotherapy and Deep Brain Reorienting for enhancing a sense of felt safety and opening more deeply into traumatic shock, sensations in the body and for working more effectively with isolated parts of our self experience.

Do I have to lie on a couch? No. It can be important to be with one another, face to face..

Where did you study? The Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity - IPSS (2020-2025) and the Psychoanalytic Institute of Philadelphia (2010-2012).

Do you teach psychoanalysis? Yes. I currently teach for the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity in NY, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NYC) and the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. I have also taught for the Psychoanalytic Institute of Tehran.

Is psychoanalysis expensive? Psychoanalysis is an investment in yourself. I am able to negotiate fee if necessary, but my primary way of "giving back" is by teaching and supervising new therapists. If you need a significantly reduced fee, please contact your local psychoanalytic institute to see if you might work well with a psychoanalytic candidate. I'm happy to assist.

Does psychoanalysis last forever? No - nothing lasts forever. It will be longer term, and most people work with me for at least two years, some longer, and many choose to stay in therapy with reduced frequency of sessions.

Will you make me dependent on you? No. I won't "make" you anything - you have agency in your work with me. There may be periods when you might *feel* dependent, and that's ok. If it doesn't *feel* okay, that might be something to work through. Just as we all need to experience attachment and individuation in our earliest years, that too may come to life in the arc of our experience together.

Any other questions or fears?

Reach out and give me a call, we can set up a time for a consultation.