Children
Infants
Difficulties with the baby and/or with the infant-parent relationship can be treated with psychoanalytic techniques. These difficulties can include intense irritability and colic, sleep and feeding issues, medical issues (for example, postsurgical, gastrointestinal and skin diseases) and temperament mismatch with parent(s).
Toddlers and Preschoolers
In this age group, common clinical presentations include anxieties and fears, autism spectrum symptoms, eating and sleeping issues, toilet training battles and related issues of control and autonomy, difficulties with transitions and separation, language delay, gender fluidity and dysphoria, hyperactivity, inattention, aggression such as biting, hitting and kicking. Treatment modalities include psychoanalytic play therapy both with parents in the playroom and later without parents as the child is able to separate.
School Age Children
Common problems are anxiety, attentional difficulties, avoidant behaviors, obsessions and compulsions, oppositionality, aggression, gender dysphoria, school and learning issues and social difficulties.
Adolescents and Young Adults
Adolescents
Difficulties can include avoidant and/or rebellious behaviors, eating disorders, post traumatic stress, gender and sexual identity issues, substance abuse and other addictive behaviors, mood issues (depression, other mood disorders), self-harm, aggression, achievement problems, identity problems and thought disorders.
Young Adults
Often unresolved issues from childhood and adolescence can persist during this complex time of development when individual, familial and societal expectations can outpace a young adult’s developing capacities in the realms of achievement, work and independent functioning. It is also a common period for the onset of major mental health disorders.
Adults
Adults
I help adults who have difficulties with their relationships, sexuality, work, family, pregnancy and infertility, personality issues and unresolved childhood issues such as trauma, abuse and neglect. I also help patients with life transitions, unexpected events, traumas and understanding their inner world.
Couples
Relationships are never simple and sometimes need a therapist’s view of some of the patterns of communication, expectations and roles that emerge and become problematic. Tensions within the couple can be opportunities for reevaluation and reworking these dynamics for continued growth and development. I also help couples navigate through separation, divorce and post-divorce parenting and relationships.
Parent Work
There is no guidebook for parenting within a particular family, let alone thinking through raising a child or children with complexity. This work allows parents to step back and look at the needs, special or not, of their child/children and create new possibilities of interactions, intervention and relationships.
Families
With a background in family therapy, I help families struggling with communication, intergenerational issues, conflicts and crises.
Consultation / Supervision
Consultations
Second opinion consultations allow for a fresh look at diagnostic issues and interventions when current treatment(s) appear to be at a standstill or impasse.
I also provide consultations to schools on behavioral and social issues and classroom and recess accommodations, as well as presentations to school staff on development, learning differences and other relevant topics.
Supervision
I provide psychiatric and psychoanalytic individual and group supervision to professionals during and after professional training.