You might be wondering: When is the right time to start psychotherapy? There isn’t one answer.

Considering When To Start Psychotherapy?

Are things not going the way you want and you don’t know why? Do you often struggle with feelings you have no idea what to do with? Have worries you can’t talk to anyone about, even your closest friends? Or terrible thoughts about yourself that won’t let up? Have you even thought about psychotherapy for a specific reason – a problem you’ve lived with for a very long time?

These are all good reasons for psychotherapy. But, how do you choose a virtual stranger to talk to and choose well?

Am I A Good Match?

If you think I might be a good match, the best thing to do is to come into my office for a series of several consultations. These initial meetings will give you a chance to see how you and I would work together; as well as what ideas about you and recommendations I have to offer.

But, before calling for your first appointment, here are some things you might want to know about me:

I’m trained as a clinical psychologist, yet more importantly as a psychoanalyst. What this means is that I take seriously each symptom or problem you bring and I look for the not-so-conscious roots.

Everyone comes to psychotherapy with a very particular history of childhood relationships, traumas, and losses; people who haven’t given you what you needed, experiences that have hurt.

I will help you think about your symptoms - as well as what causes them - in the context of your history; connections you can’t make on your own.

What Are Symptoms?

You might be wondering, though - what exactly are symptoms?

They are unconscious (too-painful) feelings and memories, that have their origins early in life. Because you didn’t know what else to do, these feelings and memories were shut out of your awareness. They are now ‘remembered’ in your body; your behaviors; in the places where you are stuck.

Your symptoms are small parts of your history; reminding you of what you’ve tried to “forget.” Reminding you that the past still lives inside.

Repeating The Past

We all repeat our histories in our self-perceptions; our feelings; and in what we believe we can or cannot expect. However, these repetitions aren’t conscious. And, because of this, they take place in our love relationships; in our friendships; in our difficulties in work. More often than not, they seem related only to a current situation or relationship, but they’re not.

These unconscious repetitions happen in psychotherapy too. They are necessary; and at the heart of what allows for real change. In psychotherapy with me, our relationship will be a microcosm; a window into your very individual internal universe, into the ways the past is still alive right now.

This allows me to see the roots of your symptoms clearly as they unfold between us. I can then offer new understandings of not only what happened long ago, but how the past affects your current relationships and feelings.

Getting Free

Psychotherapy - a therapy that will be yours and like no one else’s - can free you from what interferes with you having what you need and want; with problems in love; creative work; doing what you are meant to do. And, most importantly of all, from the worries and self-judgments that have interfered with your confidence and success.