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I am a psychotherapist and career counselor located in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  I practice individual psychotherapy and couples counseling.  In addition, I provide career guidance and vocational assessment.

Individual Psychotherapy

“The inner voice is the voice of a fuller life.”  

                                                                            - Carl Jung

Psychotherapy offers the chance to solve problems and chart new directions.  It also provides the opportunity to develop a subtler awareness of thought, emotion, and communication.  In many ways, the primary goals of psychotherapy are universal.

• Freedom from the restrictive patterns of the past.
• Development of emotional balance in the present.
• Enjoyment of new growth possibilities for the future.

These goals come within reach through the conscious examination of life patterns. They come to realization through the careful encouragement of human potential.

For over forty years, I have worked with a variety of methods, including psychodynamic therapy and growth-oriented counseling.  These methods help people to change their lives.

Couples Counseling

“If you contribute to other people’s happiness, you will find . . . the true meaning of life.”

                                                                                        - The Dalai Lama

Throughout their lives, people require both intimacy and solitude.  As they grow and change, their relationships have to accommodate these fundamental needs in new ways.  From raising children to managing crises, intimate partners provide many forms of support for each other.  They have to learn different ways of relating to each other in the process.  Couples counseling helps bring clarity, compassion, and flexibility to the evolving challenges of intimate life.

I help couples become aware of the entire spectrum of their feelings for each other.  I help them transcend the limiting aspects of past family patterns to reach a new level of closeness.  I help them anticipate and negotiate the predictable developmental challenges of family life.

With couples, I use cognitive, psychodynamic, and transpersonal techniques.  I work to provide a safe environment for growth and change.  I support the development of clear boundaries, communication, empathy, and love. 

Career Guidance

“Work is a vocation, a calling from . . . the source of meaning and identity.”

                                                                                       - Thomas Moore

Career counseling offers the opportunity to make work life more creative and fulfilling.  Beginning with interests, dreams, and goals, individuals can discover the roots of their vocational motivation and develop a sense of purpose.  Using this sense of purpose as a guide, they can explore various options for meaningful work.  Based on their skills and experience, they can chart a career direction that offers reliable income and personal satisfaction.

To provide a comprehensive counseling experience, I combine interview techniques, projective testing, and internet resources.  Using these tools, I help clients to develop new directions in education, work, and life planning.  I provide assistance with job search techniques, resume construction, and interview skills. 

From the career guidance process, people gain a more thorough knowledge of their hopes, dreams, and motivations.  They establish a new perspective on their work lives. They develop proactive strategies for translating their life goals and personal skills into viable career choices.

Differences Among the Services

Each of these professional services has a unique character.  Each is built on a specific version of the relationship between therapist and client.  

Individual psychotherapy is founded on trust and empathy fashioned over time in a series of private sessions.  Careful work produces a therapeutic alliance between therapist and client.  This alliance helps a client to feel progressively more comfortable discussing fundamental life issues.  Opportunities arise to try on new perspectives, allowing for transformative interpretations of meaning, emotion, and behavior.  The psychotherapeutic process reduces suffering and confusion, generating hope and confidence for coping with the future.

In couples counseling, the relationship itself is the client.  Couples work is primarily done with both parties present.  This provides the opportunity for direct and immediate improvements in interpersonal dynamics.  The role of the couples counselor is to help shape the therapeutic interaction so that greater clarity, intimacy, and support emerge in the space between the two partners seeking help.  A common goal of couples work is the transmutation of longstanding conflict into empathic understanding.  

Career guidance focuses on the creative realization of professional goals.  Clients are often disappointed, frustrated, or confused about their work lives.  By examining options and strategies with a career counselor, they can generate more successful outcomes.  Using a combination of assessment tests and career education resources, the counselor often acts as a teacher, facilitator, and advocate.  Since career guidance is not based on diagnosis and treatment, it is quite different from contemporary forms of psychotherapy.  Because it is recognizably different, it complements other specialized services in a private practice setting.