Integrated, Whole-Person Care

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Meaningful treatment begins with understanding the person, not simply assigning a diagnosis. Diagnosis, assessment, and psychological testing can be useful when they clarify symptoms, identify patterns, guide treatment planning, or support insurance coverage. In my practice, these tools are used thoughtfully, not to define you, but to better understand what you have been carrying and what kind of care may be most helpful.

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Mental health care is often fragmented, with therapy, medication, testing, and consultation handled separately. My practice offers a more integrated framework, bringing psychoanalytic depth, psychological assessment, clinical psychopharmacology, and advanced-practice mental health nursing into one coordinated treatment relationship.

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The goal is not only symptom relief, though relief matters. The larger aim is deeper self-understanding, improved functioning, emotional integration, and a more compassionate relationship with yourself.

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Psychoanalytic Depth

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Many people survive painful experiences by doing what they must: staying busy, moving forward, becoming self-reliant, or pushing feelings aside. These adaptations are not failures. At one time, they may have been necessary.

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Yet what has not been fully understood or integrated can continue to shape the present-- through anxiety, depression, self-criticism, relationship difficulties, substance use, emotional withdrawal, or a sense of disconnection.

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Psychoanalytic treatment offers a steady, collaborative space to understand these patterns with care. The purpose is not to dwell endlessly on the past, but to recognize how earlier experiences may still be influencing how you live, feel, and relate. As these patterns become clearer, new ways of feeling, choosing, and connecting can begin to emerge.

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Medication Management

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When medication may be helpful, we consider it carefully and collaboratively within the full context of your symptoms, history, medical concerns, preferences, and treatment goals.

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Medication is never treated as a default or stand-alone solution. When clinically indicated, it is integrated into the broader therapeutic work to support emotional steadiness, clearer thinking, improved sleep, reduced anxiety or depression, and better day-to-day functioning.

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When appropriate, GeneSight® pharmacogenomic testing may help inform medication decisions by offering additional information about how your body may metabolize certain medications. It does not replace clinical judgment, but it can add another layer of guidance.​

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Substance Use & Recovery

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Substance use is often an attempt to manage anxiety, trauma, grief, shame, loneliness, or emotional pain. What begins as relief can gradually become another source of suffering.

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I approach substance use with compassion and seriousness-- not as a moral failure, but as a complex response shaped by biology, psychology, relationships, and lived experience. Treatment explores both the substance use itself and the deeper emotional patterns that may sustain it.

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When clinically appropriate, medication or medication-assisted treatment may be integrated into care. The goal is not only symptom relief or abstinence, but recovery with dignity: greater freedom, self-understanding, emotional honesty, and a life less organized around pain or the search for relief.

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Stress, Anxiety, Depression & Burnout

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Chronic stress, anxiety, depression, and burnout can quietly change the way life feels. You may continue to function outwardly while feeling depleted, anxious, disconnected, or emotionally worn down inside.

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These experiences are not signs of weakness. They are often signs that you have been carrying too much for too long.

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Treatment helps identify what has become unsustainable and what your symptoms may be communicating. When appropriate, medication may be integrated as one support within the broader therapeutic work. The aim is not simply to help you function again, but to support steadiness, self-understanding, emotional freedom, and a more sustainable way of living.

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A Smaller Practice- Greater Continuity

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I do not run a high-volume practice. Meaningful therapy requires sustained attention, memory, and the experience of being known over time.

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For that reason, I intentionally keep my practice limited in size. Your treatment is not approached as one appointment among many. Your story, history, symptoms, relationships, and goals are carried forward from session to session.

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For established patients, this structure also allows for greater responsiveness. When clinically appropriate and scheduling permits, additional appointments may be available the same or next day, rather than weeks later.

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This is a practice designed around continuity, depth, and careful attention-- not volume.

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Do I Really Have to Lie on a Couch? 

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People often ask whether psychoanalysis requires lying on the couch. The short answer is: No.

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The couch is a familiar symbol of psychoanalysis, but contemporary psychoanalytic treatment is flexible. What matters most is not the furniture, but the quality of the therapeutic space: a place where you can speak freely, reflect deeply, and feel steady enough to explore your inner life.

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Freud’s famous couch has a much more human story. The couch was a gift from one of his patients, Madame Benvenisti, around 1890. She intended to make her lengthy analytic sessions more comfortable. Over time, Freud began sitting behind patients as they reclined. This arrangement became associated with free association, or saying what comes to mind with less editing or self-censorship. Freud also had a more personal reason--- he found it difficult to be looked at continuously throughout the clinical day.

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In my practice, the couch is available, but never required. You may sit, recline, rest your feet on the hassock, or choose the arrangement that feels most comfortable and supportive.

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Psychoanalysis is not about performing an old ritual. It is about creating the conditions for honest reflection, emotional depth, and meaningful change.