How I work
My 30 years working with patients have led me away from the medicalized model of psychotherapy that understands people primarily in terms of symptoms and disorders. I work from a relational model in which people’s problems make sense. Symptoms occur for reasons. They have a meaning unique to the person’s life. There is a logic to them.
In this work, it is not up to you alone and it’s not me doing something to you. It is not about an “expert” dispensing information or advice. Rather, things become clearer between two people as they try to understand one another.
The aim here is that, in the course of meeting, we come to understand more about how your particular problem developed, what it means, what underlying processes are at play, and—most importantly—what keeps the problem alive for you in the present.
I work in-person only. I am convinced that there is something important about two people being physically present together, something that cannot be entirely reproduced on a screen.
I work with adults and my work extends to individuals whose primary interest is in personal or professional growth.
Background and training
I have been fascinated by psychology since I was 17 years old. I started sitting with patients in 1996. In 2013 I was licensed as a clinical psychologist in California and have been in private practice in Fullerton since then.
PsyD in Clinical Psychology—Alliant International University
MA in Marriage and Family Counseling—National University
12 years directing a batterers intervention program and leading weekly therapy groups in Westwood, Los Angeles
Advanced training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles
My own personal psychotherapy with a co-founder of the Pacific Gestalt Institute, Los Angeles