Professional Experience
I am a licensed therapist and psychoanalyst with offices in South Pasadena. I specialize in psychotherapy for adults, adolescents, families and couples. In addition, I run psychotherapy process groups and groups for addicts in recovery.
I have also written in my field for The International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self-Psychology, Psychoanalytic Dialogues, and Psychoanalytic Inquiry. I am an associate editor for Psychoanalytic Inquiry and an associate book editor for Psychoanlaysis: Self in Context.
When children come into the therapy room, they come to play. Play is their natural mode of expression. When adults come into the therapy room, they come to tell their stories. Telling is how we adults work out our kinks. So important is this process of telling, it sometimes feels like something we must do. “I’ve got to tell you something…” is a common expression. A mother’s first words to a child who comes running to her crying is, “What happened?” Traumatic stress disorders such as PTSD have been linked to an inability to put terrifying experiences into speech, causing the victim to re-live, rather than remember, past traumas in the form of flashbacks and emotional storms — storms which appear to arise from the present but really belong to the wordless past. It has been shown that a parent’s ability to tell her story well predicts the security of her child’s bond to her. We must learn to tell our stories to raise the next generation.
In my work with clients, I am guided by my training, by the work of psychoanalysts and therapists who have contributed to this field, but I am mostly guided by the client’s unique story. A great deal of the power of therapy to relieve distress lies in the ability of the therapist to experience the difficult states of others — states that may feel at times unsharable — and help others put words to them and find a new context.
To schedule an appointment or ask about services, please leave me a message at 626.817.2462. I return calls within one business day.