I trained in a humanistic style and I'm primarily a common factors therapist, which is a style of integrative therapy.

What does that mean?

It means I focus on a set of basics (“common factors”) that underpin all successful therapy:

• Listening empathetically
• Co-creating an honest and warm relationship with you, with each of us bringing our areas of expertise
• Understanding relationship dynamics and how brains, cognition, and emotions work
• Periodically evaluating progress in therapy and adapting accordingly

I’m also a technical eclectic, which is a fancy way of saying “I use what works, even if it doesn’t fit into a unified story”. Few types of therapy are proven to be better than others. Beyond that, most evidence-based therapies all do about equally well. (For more information about this, see The Lowdown on Therapy Brands: Do They Really Matter?).

But that doesn’t mean all counseling techniques work for a specific person, time, culture, and situation! The reason I regularly ask 6 questions about progress and my intake paperwork includes a preferences assessment (How We Start) is to help me adjust to each person’s needs. Additionally, regularly checking on progress means that if I don’t seem to be helping you, we can see that and help you find someone who can.

I enter our therapy relationship with a toolkit approach; I may use elements of cognitive behavior therapy, mindfulness, attachment interventions, emotion focused therapy, or something else entirely. What we use depends on what resonates. My goal is to have the biggest evidence-based toolkit to bring to our conversation as possible. My hope is that you enter therapy willing to experiment with those.

At its most basic, psychotherapy is based on a relationship that changes both people in it. Success in therapy is best predicted by the work a client does and the quality of our relationship. Because of that, my approach is to first build a relationship, and then see how we can co-create solutions and change together.