Psychotherapy Services
I believe that no matter where you were planted, or what you've experienced, you can become strong and beautiful.
Individual and Couples
Remote Services
I took this photo of beautiful flowers growing in a rock wall in Scotland
One of the saddest things I encounter in my work as a psychologist is to hear about the painful experiences people have lived through and then watch as they create the same pain in their adulthood due to their early false beliefs.
Thank you for your interest in reading about my practice. I've been conducting psychotherapy with individuals, couples and families for 30 years. I founded a treatment program for eating disorders (which I have now sold) hence, the majority of the people that I have counseled over the years have either suffered from an eating disorder or had a family member who has. Working with these folks taught me so much about ambivalence and how people can get very stuck in life when there is a conflict within themselves.
If you've ever tried to change something about yourself, you probably ran into some feelings of ambivalence which may have made it difficult to move forward.
I can help you increase your awareness of how ambivalence may be holding you back and teach you how to harness your own wisdom to resolve the ambivalence. I have written a book for clinicians and a workbook for the general public and have trained other professionals in these concepts through supervision and workshops on the local, national and international level. You can also read more about my personal journey with ambivalence here.
I utilize concepts and strategies from many schools of thought. My hope for my clients is to help them reduce personal confusion and increase personal responsibility over their lives. If you want to blame others for the pain you've experienced, you have every right to do so, but I want something even better for you - eyes on you! I help my clients focus on themselves and what they need rather than give that power to anyone else. Thus, I especially like to incorporate ACT, Mindfulness, Solution Focused, Dialectical Behavioral and Narrative therapies (see below for more information about the Narrative Therapy that I do).
Although most of my experience has been applying these skills to people with eating disorders, I recommend that if you meet criteria for an eating disorder that you be assessed for an integrative approach such as the programs offered at Walden Behavioral Care. It's been my experience that recovering from an eating disorder usually requires an integrated team involving individual, nutrition, group and medical interventions. Therefore, I do not work in my private practice with people who would be diagnosed with an eating disorder. Also, all my sessions are remote at this point and I don't accept insurance payments.
If you're interested in psychotherapy and think I can be helpful,
you can contact me here.
Blessings for peace and health, Dr. B.
Are the Stories You Tell Yourself Robbing you of the life you Deserve and Yearn for?
Do you ever feel like you're not good enough in some way?
Do you compare yourself to others and feel like you fall short?
Is life not turning out the way you thought it would?
If you are struggling with feelings of insecurity of any kind, it may be that you are being influenced by a "story" that you developed in childhood. This story may have been guiding you, sometimes without your awareness, ever since. We all begin forming ideas about ourselves, others and the world from an early age based on a combination of factors such as our circumstances, the age that we experienced significant events and our level of physiological sensitivity.
Do you ever feel ambivalent - like the very things you wish for, you are also afraid of? Do you find yourself wanting things to be different but not making changes?
Stories we tell ourselves that contain false scripts can produce ambivalence in our lives about how best to get our needs met. Say, for instance, that you want to be married and have a family but you believe that people can't be trusted and will eventually leave. You are experiencing two opposing needs; to have a family and to protect yourself from rejection. Opposing needs will create ambivalence as to how to interact with others. Consequently, the need to protect yourself from rejection creates a guardedness that may actually result in people leaving; this then affirms the belief that people will leave. This is referred to as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sound confusing? It is and it can have life-crippling effects.
I have developed a very specific approach to increasing awareness of your narrative, challenging the underlying assumptions to then rewrite a new story. I am in the process of writing a book and have written workbook about this as well.