Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Creating a space for curious
self-exploration

WHY THERAPY ?

Being alive is a constant process of evolution and transformation, sometimes seemingly without our input. At times, the ever-evolving quality of life can feel exciting and expansive, and at others, it can feel overwhelming and chaotic. Psychotherapy provides a unique opportunity for the client and therapist to curiously engage with, untangle, and understand life’s processes—beginning to understand the inner world and its effect on the external. In doing so, we enrich our awareness of the inner world and become more able to find stillness and movement from within. 

Using the words of psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion, it is from this “dark and formless infinite” that the finite is “won.” The therapeutic task, then, is to allow a formless experience, witnessed by an attuned therapist, to occur. In doing so, a softening of rigid defenses and old patterns begins, inviting symbols, feelings, memories, thoughts, and desires to emerge in service to a fuller expression of the self. It is a process where creative impulses are given the freedom to evolve from the unknown. The ultimate goal is to cultivate a sense of self that feels embodied, integrated, and more deeply connected to both personal truth and relational others . . .

 . . . adding form to formlessness.

“It is joy to be hidden,
but a disaster not to be found.”

― Donald W. Winnicott

THERAPY FOR . . .

  • INDIVIDUALS

    Individual therapy to cultivate an inner awareness of your wants, needs, and patterns.

  • COUPLES

    Couples therapy focused on attunement, understanding, and reparative experiences together.

  • KIDS & TEENS

    Therapy to understand and ride the waves of a tumultuous and exciting period of growth.

WHAT IS THERAPY LIKE?

  • Therapy is relational and requires cultivating consistent, genuine attunement between the client and therapist. As a therapist, this means being responsive to the client’s inner world, tuning into their emotions, and resonating with their experience without imposing any expectations or judgments. Genuine attunement between the therapist and client creates a space where the client can feel seen and understood, experience relational ruptures and repair, and engage curiously with the things we do not yet understand.

    Photo Credit: Rachel DiDonato

  • Addressing trauma, grief, loss, and the parts of ourselves we would rather ignore is hard. Holding space for the client to curiously explore themselves in a supportive space crucial to the process of therapy. The aim in fostering this space is that the client can begin to feel truly held by the therapist, allowing themselves to feel secure in the therapeutic relationship. Then, therapy can begin to address the things that make us uncomfortable, and the thing that make us feel whole.

    Photo Credit: Emily Krouse

  • The therapeutic process involves journeying into the hidden layers of your psyche—those aspects that lie just beneath conscious awareness that shape and influence your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. From a depth psychological perspective, this process is about turning inward with curiosity and courage, engaging with symbols, dreams, and emotions that emerge in the therapeutic space. To discover patterns and meanings that may initially feel elusive. Together, we gently bring these unknown aspects into the light, allowing them to be witnessed and integrated, expanding your sense of self and opening new pathways to psychological wellness.

  • Therapy is a place to grapple with parts of yourself, your experiences, or your interactions with others that feel uncomfortable, challenging, or even sharp. Maybe you are prickly in the way you connect with yourself or how you connect with others. Often, these are aspects of ourselves that we avoid or suppress—old habits, painful memories, defensive patterns, or ways of reacting that may no longer serve us. By acknowledging and working with these prickly parts in therapy, we can soften the rough edges with honesty and compassion, bringing awareness to the ways they impact your daily life and relationships. This process allows you step out of old cycles and gently reshape your responses and choices, turning what once felt rigid or reactive into opportunities for embodied living and transformation.

    Photo Credit: Rachel DiDonato

  • Throughout the therapeutic process, self-awareness emerges again and again as gradual guidance through the layers of the inner world. As we work together to explore your experiences, challenges, and aspirations, an expanded self-understanding begins to unfold, often quietly, until it becomes undeniable. This awareness is the result of engaging deeply with yourself, honoring both your strengths and vulnerabilities, and confronting the patterns that have shaped you. In this newfound clarity, you begin to see yourself and your choices with fresh insight, empowering you to live more intentionally and authentically. Emerging awareness brings not just insight but also flexibility to respond in new ways, aligned with the person you’re becoming rather than the patterns of the past. This is the heart of transformation—stepping into a fuller sense of aliveness, with an expanded capacity for feeling and possibility grounded in a deeper truth.

    Photo Credit: Nina Roder

Here are some concerns we can address together.

The therapeutic process is a highly personalized one.

INDIVIDUALIZED SUPPORT FOR …

DEPRESSION

Out of energy? Is life less enjoyable than before?

"When I was a little boy I remember seeing a tree. Half of it was withered and dead and the other half was blooming. Then I realized that one could be dead and very much alive, concurrently."

— Michael Eigen

ANXIETY

Can’t shake the feeling that all eyes are on you?

"Anxiety reflects the fear that we are not enough, and yet paradoxically too much, for those we wish to love us."

— Heinz Kohut

TRAUMA

Experiences from the past holding you back?

"Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness." — Peter A. Levine

RELATIONSHIPS

Looking to connect with your partner on a deeper level?

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

— James Baldwin

NEURODIVERGENCE

Struggling to adapt in a world that thinks differently than you?

"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."

— Alfred Adler

IDENTITY

Unable to express your most authentic self?

“Doing as others told me, I was Blind.

Coming when others called me, I was Lost.

Then I left everyone, myself as well.

Then I found Everyone, Myself as well.”

― Rumi

QUESTIONS? LET’S CHAT.

HAVE QUESTIONS? BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION WITH ME.