Male Therapists in Spring Valley, Washington, DC

Are you suffering with anxiety, anger, severe grief, or relationship issues? Is your child experiencing behavior or academic issues in school? Is your partner in the throes of addiction, while creating a stressful environment at home? Maybe it's trauma, or a social issue that you or a family member is dealing with. Are you a returning citizen struggling with life's readjustments? I can help you create a plan that will leave you feeling supported, as opposed to just being heard. I am a highly skilled mental health clinician who understands the challenges of today's highly stressed world. Together, the solution awaits us!

When we work together, we will meet in a HIPAA compliant TeleHealth video session or in-person with a home or office visit.

I work on problems caused by symptoms or troubling persistent personality traits by helping clients obtain a more complete and honest picture of themselves. The increased self-knowledge and insight achieved within a supportive therapeutic relationship helps my clients make the changes they are seeking. Enhanced relationships, improved confidence, and the elimination of self-defeating behaviors are the product of the continued development and deepening of the therapeutic relationship.

I apply the science of Psychology in assisting individuals, couples and families in the pursuit of their goals. I strive to maximize their happiness and to live more effective lives. I have practiced in the Washington Metropolitan area since 1973. Trained by Drs. Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis, I have specialized training in cognitive-behavioral therapy and in the treatment of mood disorders. As a certified sex therapist I combine the application of psychological science with a compassionate, empathic approach to individuals and couples as they struggle with their problems in the area of sexual functioning and related difficulties.

I work with individuals, couples, and groups that are faced with a variety of challenges, including but not limited to depression, anxiety, interpersonal conflict and dissatisfaction, infidelity, impulse control, and adjustment issues. I am trained and use ACT principles when working with my clients. ACT is a mindfulness, acceptance, and commitment approach to psychotherapy. Working together, I help clients slow down the thought process so they can thoughtfully respond to difficult thoughts and emotions. This allows you to take value-based behavioral action as opposed to having emotional, automatic reactions.

If you are looking for a supportive and approachable therapist to help you, your child, or your adolescent build effective coping strategies and create goal oriented solutions to help you improve your quality of life, I can help. My passion is adolescents and children. Some of the issues I focus on include anxiety, depression, adjustment problems, and social skills enhancement in young people. I have extensive experience in helping children, adolescents, adults, and families with complex underlying medical and/or developmental diagnoses deal with the impact these conditions have on their behavior, emotional happiness, and interactions with others.

I specialize in providing individual psychotherapy to children and adolescents with a wide-range of emotional and behavioral difficulties. Although my expertise is with youth with mood disorders, including anxiety and depression, I also have extensive experience with youth with social and behavioral struggles. My approach is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in focus, as it is best supported by research, children and adolescents respond to it very positively, and because I have found it to produce immediate and long-lasting improvements in functioning.

I help individuals work on life issues tied to anxiety and depression, relationship difficulties, stress symptoms tied to childhood trauma, and families struggling with behavioral challenges. I teach communication skills that help with difficult relationships. These skills include helping my clients improve their power, voice, and contact with significant others. I employ many approaches in psychotherapy, including psychodynamic, gestalt, somatic experiencing (SE), accelerated experiential dynamic (AEDP), cognitive behavioral (CBT) and emotionally focused couples therapy (EFT).

I have more than 25 years of experience in Clinical Psychology divided between both sides of the Atlantic. My professional and personal experience helps me relate to the culturally diverse and globally minded population of the Washington Metropolitan Area. Over the years, after graduating from a mostly research oriented graduate program in Psychology, I pursued intensive training in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Psychodrama, Group and Family Psychotherapy, and Psychoanalysis. I am certain that Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, correctly applied, can lead to the most dramatic and long lasting changes in patient's lives.

I am a licensed clinical psychologist providing individual therapy for adults in the Friendship Heights area of NW Washington, DC. I work with individuals with a number of presenting concerns, including mood disorders (e.g., depression and anxiety), addictions, trauma histories (e.g., sexual abuse, combat trauma, etc.), longstanding personality and relationship problems, and more.

I am an interactive therapist who uses the therapeutic relationship as the entry point for exploring the thoughts, feelings, and habits that have become difficult for the client. I believe that people are natural learners who have become who they are through what they have learned from experience, and that psychotherapy is a focused and intentional way of continuing to learn about life, self, and relationship in ways that help a person move toward more effective and satisfying ways of living. I am optimistic, as I believe that as long as we are talking there is always hope for improvement.

You are suffering and looking for resolution. This may manifest in myriad ways ---finding, communicating, separating from, or being more intimate in relationships; depression/anxiety sucking the energy/pleasure/novelty from life... Let's be curious together and understand the causes of your suffering. Let's see if there can be a change in perspective, in some ways a psychic paradigm shift, that lifts you out of the matrix of your current reality and relieves suffering. Let's learn from this therapeutic process an ongoing path for being with and exploring life so that it may be fuller and happier.

Picking a therapist to work with can be overwhelming. Feeling comfortable and understood by your therapist is critical. During our first session we will explore what brought you to me. Together we identify your struggles, develop a treatment plan, discuss whether you feel comfortable with me, and that our plan makes sense to you. I am a Licensed Psychologist with over 20 years of experience. A certified IMAGO, Gottman, Equine Assisted and Diplomat in Sex Therapy, we will talk openly and candidly about your life. Together, we will explore your concerns, past and present and mindfully identify changes for you to consider.

"Help! My stress is over the top!" Have you found yourself thinking this? Are you facing difficult circumstances? Is stress from events in the world, or concerns about oppression and privilege, affecting you and/or your relationships? Is it harder to meet your commitments to family, friends, and/or groups and causes you care about? I specialize in helping adults, adolescents and families draw upon their strengths, solve problems, and develop new understanding and new skills.

You are trying to shine bright like a diamond and have the things most of us desire for a good life. But there is something dimming your brilliance—it constricts you. You know, those feelings of doubt, dread, disgruntlement, desperation, or despair. Like that constant wondering about whether you are viewed as competent at work; like that disappointment you cover up with food, drink or overachieving because you haven’t met “the one;” like that hurt you carry from a past that shamed you or the depths of grief; or like the helplessness feel when your child is struggling.

Although you may not believe it, you are stronger than you think. Through our work in therapy, I will help you to find your strengths and learn to leverage them in times of need. I work collaboratively with children, adolescents, and adults in individual and family therapy. I have experience working with depression, anxiety, personality disorders, relationship concerns, in addition to behavioral concerns in children.

Seeking therapy is often part of a painful journey. Things a person did on their own for their mental health & to connect with others have not worked. Sadness & fear interferes with their work & relationships. For some people seeking therapy, alcohol & drugs provide temporary relief from suffering; however, those behaviors sometimes cause further damage. It’s hard for them to accept compliments & they feel uncomfortable in their own skin, even after achieving things that are supposed to be fulfilling. They meet interesting, loving people, & they find it very hard to get close to them, leading to more isolation.

In today’s stressful and uncertain world, each of us can experience challenges with anxiety, depression, major life transitions, and low self-esteem. I work to provide my clients with a safe, affirming, non-judgmental space to work through these challenges on their journeys to wellness and fulfillment. I support my clients as they find healing from trauma, develop meaningful relationships, achieve their life goals, and come to celebrate their truest, deepest selves.

My approach to therapy is compassionate, collaborative, holistic and individualized, meeting you where you are. I am passionate about the process of therapy and will help you to develop insight, identify and reach your goals and enhance wellness. I specialize in treating couples and individuals coping with mental health and relationship concerns. My aim is to engage in collaboration to illuminate, foster insight and clarify what is within as well as the path ahead.