ABOUT OUR WORK WITH PATIENTS

What hurts?  Emotional pain can be worse than physical pain. You suffer, or run from it, or try to numb it with drugs, gambling, video games, or alcohol.  But when the effect of those temporary fixes wears off, the pain is still there.  Examples of painful feelings are shame, fear, embarrassment, humiliation, resentment, and jealousy.  You can probably add more examples of emotional pain from your own experience.  If something you eat, smoke, inject, drink, or do gives you temporary relief, you have the core of an addiction. 

Figuring out what the pain is, where it comes from, and then helping you to decrease its power over your life is the foundation of my practice.  Clinical work can change a painful memory to simply a memory.   That process can take some space and time, so I often prescribe medication for temporary relief while we figure things out.  Sometimes, the relief of being able to speak freely of your pain and feel understood gives enough improvement--without medication--and that's great.    

Being heard can help you learn about yourself, your goals, principles and values, and assist you in decreasing feelings of loneliness and isolation.  I help my patients get rid of these painful feelings, which are often at the root of problems like depression, addiction, and anxiety.  I have found that  Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy (EMDR) is one of my most valuable tools because it works fast and gives true relief from painful memories.  The mind learns to use that approach and generalizes it to other problems.