I work with people who have worked hard to get where they are in life. They’ve done things right in order to achieve the success that they have. They’re good people and they want a happy life. Yet, they tend to work so much to achieve their career and life goals, that they go for years without nurturing their personal lives and needs. They can feel that they’re missing so much of the joy and excitement that they want. They don’t feel balance between success in their careers and success in their personal lives.
But, how would they? Our parents and schools typically don’t teach us to know what we need in life and how to get those needs met. They don’t teach us how to communicate so well that we always feel great connection and support in our relationships. Often, they don’t teach us to stay self-soothed and balanced, including while others around us are upset. They usually don’t show us how to face all of our emotions intelligently, so that they can guide us to our best choices and decisions. And, all too often, they don’t stress to us how important we really are and the talents that are waiting to be expressed in us. To often, our elders don’t teach us how to live a life that we love.
Fortunately, it’s never too late to create a joyful and balanced life.
I love working with my clients, because I’ve been to where many of them are when they come to see me. As a young man, I hit “rock bottom,” and I faced my own darkness, long enough to get to the other side. I got the therapy and support I needed to face my life and eventually to develop a healthy balance. I learned to create a life filled with success balanced with joy, excitement, adventure, great relationships, and purpose. That purpose is to guide others on their own journeys toward happiness and connection.
If you’re ready to create a joyful life as well, you’ve come to the right place.
A balanced, happy life is more than just a choice. It takes attention and action. And, having the right guide - someone who’s actually taken that journey - can help you get there faster and easier. Since 1997, I’ve used Western and Eastern theories to help my clients with:
Being in a relationship should feel like being “home.” A home that feels safe, supportive, and loving, with intimacy, fun, romance, and attraction. That’s usually what we signed up for, right?
Well, about 50% of first marriages in the U.S. end in divorce, and those rates increase with subsequent marriages. Marriage researchers in Southern California, however, think that Southern California has a divorce rate that is closer to 75%.
So, while there are many reasons that couples struggle, people who are burnt out and stressed out typically have difficulty in their intimate relationships. They’re tapped out and don’t have the patience and energy to consistently nurture their partnerships. And the ways of being that create success in other areas of their lives don’t work in their significant relationships. In fact, they often damage them.
My experience shows that couples often begin to “come back to life” when we put skillful attention and focus on them. Like each of us, they need to be nurtured in order to thrive. And, they often need a trusted, experienced therapist to guide them in order for each person to deeply understand themselves and each other, to develop the needed skills, and to practice the suggestions that come from sessions.
I love working with couples because the issues they need to face can happen live in the therapy room. I teach them how to connect with themselves, how to communicate and listen to their partners well, how to express difficult and painful feelings, how to use difficulties to create greater connection, and how to increase the joy and fun in their relationships.
If you and your partner want to create a relationship that makes you each feel more alive, more loved and loving, more passionate and fun, more supported, and strong enough to navigate the inevitable challenges of relationships, let’s get started.
I believe that part of choosing the right therapist for you is knowing about the beliefs, methods, and the theories that he or she is trained in and utilizes in his/her work. There are many theories, and they often contradict each other as much as political parties do. A solid therapist is well-trained in the theories that he or she believe are most helpful to the people they treat. My style comes from the following training, theories, and techniques:
My overall “lens” as a therapist is based on Gestalt Therapy. This is a holistic style that considers the entire picture of you and your life in order to understand what you’re going through and how to get where you want to go. It focuses on what’s happening in your life presently, and looks only at the “relevant past” (the past that is interfering with your present). It’s action oriented, and helps you to get traction on your life and get it moving in the right direction.
Positive Psychology is focused on a person’s, couple’s, or organization’s strengths, optimal functioning, hope, possibilities, goal-directedness, and well-being. It stems from an accelerating body of scientific research, and is shown to help high-functioning people increase happiness, virtues, leadership, gratitude, forgiveness, effectiveness, and enhancing the joy in life.
Gestalt Therapy for Couples is a powerful method of helping couples work through difficulties in their relationships. From this theory, I help people say what they need to express, listen in a completely new way, and learn to allow and use differences to create connection. It helps people to balance their separateness with their togetherness.
Differentiation-Based Therapy is the only therapy that integrates the two fields of marital therapy and sex therapy. My training in this style allows me to help you learn to tolerate anxiety, anger, and other emotions, and use them to increase intimacy and passion in your relationship.
Also known as Insight Therapy, his theory focuses on the unconscious processes and your past that affect you in the present. When needed, it helps me to explore your early relationships, as well as other significant life experiences.
From this training, I have taught parenting classes, helped family members with conflict resolution, and have assisted many clients in bringing up children of all ages and in dealing with parents. In particular, I really enjoy helping young people and young adults grow successfully into responsible, mature, happy adults.
This is a mind-body approach to working with depression and anxiety. It blends the mindfulness techniques of Buddhism with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Having been trained in India, Nepal, Australia, and the U.S., I use this to help my clients to slow down in the moment and develop strong presence, awareness, and self-soothing. This mindful approach makes all of our work together much more effective and long-lasting.
