My Story

Becoming a psychotherapist

I understand first-hand what it can mean to undertake psychotherapy for the first time. I went for treatment as a young adult only because I was desperate and concluded I had no other choice. Despite being very unhappy at the time, I took pride in considering myself to be competent, resourceful, vigorous, and self-reliant. I dreaded acknowledging that my life was not as it should be and allowing myself to be scrutinized by a stranger who, as I saw it at the time, was an expert in exposing personal weaknesses. I felt that taking this step only confirmed to me that I was defective.

Fortunately, I have found myself in the care of unusually good therapists who knew that psychological problems are complex and took the time to understand mine. I discovered there was far more to me, both positive and negative, than I had imagined. Occasionally, I found the process to be painful, but mostly it was liberating and life-expanding. In time, I came to realize I wanted to help people grow in important ways that I knew were possible through psychotherapy.

Academic Training

I left my first career in national health care policy to attend graduate school in psychology at the University of South Carolina. There, I received extensive training in cognitive behavioral therapy. I believe this theory is important, and it informs my clinical practice every day.  Analyzing clients' faulty assumptions and problematic reactions are essential aspects of treatment that can bring immediate relief from emotional distress.

But, by themselves, these methods do not sufficiently improve the way a person naturally feels or responds, which is the heart of the problem. From personal and clinical experience I learned that trying to monitor and alter long-term, self-limiting perceptions and automatic responses requires too much vigilance and produces results that are usually disappointing.  I discovered, instead, that attitudes and desires can be fundamentally reorganized by strengthening a person's core sense of themselves. This approach has the advantage of minimizing a person's need to rely always on deliberate coping maneuvers to maintain emotional equilibrium. This realization led me to pursue post-doctoral training in contemporary exploratory psychotherapies, and I have been studying and applying treatment from these perspectives ever since.

Work in Public and Private Settings

After completing my graduate training I worked for seven years as a psychotherapist at a community mental health center in Southeast Washington, DC. My work in that clinic with African American clients affirmed my belief that for all of our obvious differences from each other in terms of race, gender, income, social status, cultural identity, and life experiences, we actually are more alike than different; we are able to connect emotionally with one another when there is sufficient desire to understand and a willingness to be affected by our encounters with each other. I have been in private practice for over 30 years, first in Washington, DC, and Falls Church, VA, and now in Silver Spring, MD. I have always preferred treating a broad range of problems, from the least to the most severe, in people of all ages.

Further Training & Professional Development

An immense reward of working in my field is that there is much to learn that is important and fascinating to me. I have always devoted a substantial portion of my work-week to in-depth psychotherapy training programs and weekly clinical meetings with paid consultants and study groups of peers. The Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis (ICP+P) has been my professional home since its inception almost 30 years ago. I have completed five years-worth of in-depth psychotherapy training programs in this organization. Now, I am an administrator, teacher, and consultant for other therapists in the ICP+P psychotherapy training program. I have been involved as a board member or teacher at two other local psychotherapy training organizations, the Washington Society of Psychoanalytic Psychology and the Washington School of Psychiatry.