I love counseling with people who make a serious commitment of time, energy, and resources to get more of what they want out of life. We work together as a team on your important personal projects: managing careers, finding love, making money, reducing stress, and much more. Along the way, I teach practical skills for:

• Reducing upsetting thoughts
• Soothing negative emotions
• Increasing the flexibility of long-held beliefs
• Counseling for strategy, including:
  • Maintaining focus and motivation
  • Evaluating progress against goals
• Being in touch spiritually
• Addressing physical issues

You know how people will often say, "I know what I need to do, but I just can't get myself to do it"? Getting stuck is most often emotional, not logical. For this reason, I specialize in counseling you to shift your inner approach to life: how you feel about yourself, the world, other people, and your goals. The result of this work is that you feel more flexible, motivated, and confident.

Many of my clients are psychotherapy graduates who want less analysis of the past and a more interactive way to build toward the future. At the heart of my approach is helping people to manage emotions so that they reach their goals more effectively. And as you succeed at building the life you've dreamed of having, negative emotions—such as anxiety, stress, and depression—lose their grip and fade away.

I enjoy meeting with my clients hourly every week, for an average duration of 6 to 9 months. To produce an inner shift, my clients actively practice and play with new approaches in between our meetings, they frequently apply our conversations to their daily activities, and we team up to evaluate progress against goals. In the true spirit of consultation, I will not be shy about offering advice; however, in the end, you make your own decisions, and I will respect those decisions and follow you.

The following sections provide more background about my consultation methods.

After more than a century of professional focus on lowering suffering (for example, moving from a -5 to a 0 on the "well being" scale), some renowned psychologists have recently encouraged a shift of emphasis to what makes a person resilient, strong, peaceful, and happy (moving from a 0 to a +5 on the "well being" scale). They call this movement Positive Psychology. In addition to focusing on happiness, this movement emphasizes specific and practical action, instead of over relying on talk and analysis.

I will be teaching the Positive Psychology: How to Get Unstuck and Get On With Your Life course for three evenings this spring with Arlington Community Education. Discover the secrets of those shiny, happy people! Click here for more information.

I have always focused on teaching people the skills of happiness, and I commit to staying current with further research in this area.

A solid body of research completed within the past twenty-five years shows that learning to alter how you think and act (CBT counseling), and learning how to maintain a pleasant, accepting focus on what you are doing in the present moment (mindfulness), are the keys to reducing emotional distress. Emotion-management skills include slowing down, shifting from negative thinking to realistic optimism, responding to emotional upset in ways that make you feel a bit better (instead of ways that make a bad situation worse), balancing your head and heart when making decisions, increasing feelings of motivation, delaying some gratification while still being able to enjoy the moment, and more. I offer a sophisticated form of this type of type of counseling, and I commit to staying current with further research in this area.

Increasingly, new types of scientific endeavors are supporting approaches that people used to dismiss as intellectually light weight or as "crunchy granola." Mind, body, and spirit appear to be so intricately interwoven that the idea of there being a line between them is increasingly being disproved by science! Similarly, on a more day-to-day level, people do not experience their overall health as being separate from finding a date for Saturday night, trying to avoid the sweet snacks at the coffee station at work, managing a difficult father-in-law or boss, making more money, or finding meaning in life. Our work will go where you need to go to foster overall well being.

While working to build a more satisfying life, it only makes sense that you enjoy yourself along the way. I make it a goal to laugh frequently while counseling my clients.

In this more traditional way of working toward emotional well being, I consult with individuals or couples weekly or biweekly for an hour. Using this method, the entire time is devoted to your personal goals, and it helps you to learn as you go, fine tuning your efforts using ongoing counseling and consultation.

I also work "remotely" with people, using a combination of weekly 45-minute counseling phone calls and email coaching. Contact me for more information.

Workshops are familiar environments for adult learning, require minimal time commitment, and enhance the experience for both shy people and those who value input from a group. I offer workshops on various topics—dating skills, boosting daily joy, career development, and more—during the spring, fall, and winter months.