Specialties

"From conception onward, our lives are about relationship. Relationship is who we are and what we do."

-
Gay Hendricks
Conscious Living.

My services can help you if

• you are in a difficult relationship and want to resolve existing problems

• you have lost the thrill and excitement that you desire in your relationship

• you are near breakup or divorce and want to decide if the relationship can be saved

• your past relationships have not worked out and you want to learn new skills

• you want turn a good relationship into a great relationship

You will learn…

• more patience, understanding, and compassion for yourself and your partner

• how to create passion, joy, romance, and intimacy

• how to communicate your needs clearly and ask for support to get your needs met

• how to make choices and take responsibility for your feelings and actions

We are living at an important and fruitful moment now, for it is clear to men that the images of adult manhood given by the popular culture are worn out; a man can no longer depend on them. By the time a man is thirty-five he knows that the images of the right man, the tough man, the true man which he received in high school do not work in life. Such a man is open to new visions of what a man is or could be.

-
Robert Bly,
Iron John, A Book About Men

Many men today find that something is missing in their lives. Are you one of these men?

Are you always unsatisfied with some aspect of your life?

You love your partner, but something about him or her frustrates you and you feel that you are settling for less. You have a great job, but it would be so much better if your boss would only see things your way.

Do you avoid addressing these issues by spending too much time:

• Working

• Watching TV

• Surfing the Internet

• Looking at Pornography

• Drinking, gambling, etc.

Are you ready for a change? I help men to discover more passion, joy, and purpose in their lives.

The key to understanding Out-Of-Control Sexual Behaviors (OCSB), Pornography Addiction, and Sexual Addiction is to assess the role that the behaviors play in a person’s life.

People express their sexuality and find sexual pleasure in many different ways. I will never judge you or shame you for your behavior. My goal is to help you determine what is healthy and what is unhealthy behavior, to help you better understand what motivates you to engage in these behaviors, and to help you stop if you so choose.

Often the problem is not the sexual behaviors, but your relationship to the behaviors and the role that they play in your life.

Many people with OCSB and Sexual Addiction struggle to tell the truth about their behaviors. Lying and violations of trust often lead to significant problems in their relationship. I work with couples to help address underlying relationship issues, heal violations of trust, and to rebuild healthy relationship.

Depression and anxiety often go together. More than half of the people diagnosed with depression also have anxiety. Either condition can be disabling on its own. Together, depression and anxiety can be especially hard to live with, hard to diagnose, and hard to treat.

Depression can make people feel profoundly discouraged, helpless, and hopeless. Anxiety can make them agitated and overwhelmed by physical symptoms -- a pounding heart, tightness in the chest, and difficulty breathing.

Depression and anxiety can be caused by physiological or environmental factors. I will help you determine the likely cause and the best course of treatment.

Process addiction is an addiction to an activity or process, such as video games, the internet, spending money, or gambling. These behaviors can be as debilitating as those associated with substance addictions, and they require psychological treatment. People sometimes have difficulty understanding these conditions, because they believe that people should just be able to stop negative behavior, but process addicts face the same problems that people with substance addictions do.

The process of addiction is influenced by a variety of factors. A person’s mental state, genetics, childhood experiences, and cultural factors can all contribute to addiction, as can factor like childhood experiences. Addiction is often an escape from unwanted feelings or emotions. In order to treat the addiction, underlying emotional stressors often need to be identified and addressed.

There are many possible causes of addiction including:

• Grief and loss

• Relationship issues

• Entitlement/reward

• Shame/low self-esteem

• Boredom/excitement: to create a sense of escape or challenge

• Power/control

• Anxiety/stress

• Depression

• Anger

I will work with you to identify the underlying issues and help you stop addictive behaviors.

What is sex therapy?

Sex therapy is a specialized form of psychotherapy that focuses on sexual issues, most often for individuals in relationships (although you do not need to be in a relationship to seek sex therapy).

Commonly sex therapy will focus on a sexual dysfunction or major sexual communication problems between partners. As your sex therapists we will try to help you develop a clearly defined issue. The goal of therapy will be to work on that issue and resolve it, or find a way to make whatever problems it causes have less of an impact on your life and sex life.

Sex therapy is generally brief, lasting anywhere from a few sessions to more than a dozen sessions.

My approach to sex therapy is usually directive. I will be active, asking questions and often giving direct suggestions, homework exercises, and information in an effort to support your goals

Why go to sex therapy?

Sex and intimacy problems are surprisingly common in relationships. Good sexual chemistry for couples over the long term does not automatically occur like it does in the early phase of a relationship (and in the movies), even if both people still care about each other. In order to create lasting intimacy, couples need to learn new skills.

Some examples of issues that bring people to sex therapy are:

• Sexual trauma

• Lack of orgasm

• Difficulties with erections or ejaculation

• Problems with differing levels of desire in a couple

• Difficulties resulting from infidelities

• Sexual concerns as a result of illness or surgery

Sex Therapy will help you to

• Develop better sexual intimacy in your relationship

• Resolve sexual concerns that otherwise will continue to cause problems

• Improve sexual desire

• Dissolve tension regarding differences in desire so that you both feel fulfilled

• Make sexual intimacy something you each look forward to and brings you closer

You will learn…

• more patience, understanding, and compassion for yourself and your partner

• how to create passion, joy, romance, and intimacy

• how to communicate your needs clearly and ask for support to get your needs met

• how to make choices and take responsibility for your feelings and actions

Consider that how you treat your child is probably how you were treated as a child. And it is how you treat yourself.

-
Cheri Huber
TIME-OUT for Parents: A Guide to Compassionate Parenting

There is no single life event that has a greater capacity for transforming our mind, body, and soul than the birth of a child. Giving birth and becoming a parent brings us face to face with our own deepest fears and desires. We are given the opportunity to choose to open our hearts, face our fears, and rediscover love and trust. I believe that loving yourself and your spouse is good parenting!

Parenting is about modeling. Without any formal teaching, our children will absorb the fundamental truths of our lives and values. They will see us for who we truly are: not only our public persona but our real selves. They will take in how we treat ourselves, how we treat others and what we believe about the world.

If we would like to teach our children to have healthy relationships with others and to love themselves, we must have healthy relationships and love ourselves. Many of us mistakenly believe that loving our children (or loving anyone) means putting our children first, ahead of our own needs. But what do they say on the airplane? “Put on your own mask before helping others.” In order to teach our children how to take care of themselves, we must start by taking care of ourselves.

As most parents realize, children are insatiable! There is no end to their capacity to demand of you! You and only you can set healthy boundaries and make sure that your needs are consistently being met. Your child – and your spouse – cannot do this for you.

Eventually, most of us realize that being a parent is not about teaching our children, but about learning ourselves. Nature designed us perfectly: Teaching is the best way to learn. Or as a French academic put it, "To teach is to learn twice."

What causes depression? What about postpartum depression?

There is no single cause. Rather, depression likely results from a combination of factors:

• Depression is a mental illness that tends to run in families. Women with a family history of depression are more likely to have depression.

• Changes in brain chemistry or structure are believed to play a big role in depression.

• Stressful life events, such as death of a loved one, caring for an aging family member, abuse, and poverty, can trigger depression.

• Hormonal factors unique to women may contribute to depression in some women. We know that hormones directly affect the brain chemistry that controls emotions and mood. We also know that women are at greater risk of depression at certain times in their lives, such as puberty, during and after pregnancy, and during perimenopause. Some women also have depressive symptoms right before their period.

(Source: www.womenshealth.gov)

Postpartum Depression in Women

Depression after childbirth is called postpartum depression. Hormonal changes may trigger symptoms of postpartum depression. When you are pregnant, levels of the female hormones estrogen and progesterone increase greatly. In the first 24 hours after childbirth, hormone levels quickly return to normal. Researchers think the big change in hormone levels may lead to depression. This is much like the way smaller hormone changes can affect a woman’s moods before she gets her period.

Other factors may play a role in postpartum depression. You may feel:

• Tired after delivery

• Tired from a lack of sleep or broken sleep

• Overwhelmed with a new baby

• Doubts about your ability to be a good mother

• Stress from changes in work and home routines

• An unrealistic need to be a perfect mom

• Loss of who you were before having the baby

• Less attractive

• A lack of free time

Postpartum Depression in Men

We don’t know the exact prevalence of male postpartum depression; studies have used different methods and diagnostic criteria. Dr. Paul G. Ramchandani, a psychiatrist at the University of Oxford in England who did a study based on 26,000 parents, reported in The Lancet in 2005 that 4 percent of fathers had clinically significant depressive symptoms within eight weeks of the birth of their children.

The postpartum period is a time of significant change and many men have not learned the requisite coping skills to successfully navigate these changes. Becoming a father requires that men learn new emotional and relational skills. Challenges that men encounter in the postpartum period include:

• Feeling overwhelmed or scared about the demands of fatherhood

• Stress from changes in work and home routines

• Coping with receiving less time and attention from their partner

• Changes in their partner's appearance and interest in sexual activity

• A lack of free time

• Disagreements about parenting or relationship issues

How I can help

I offer individual, couples, and group therapy for postpartum depression in women and men.

I practice Gay Affirmative Psychotherapy, which was developed by my mentor, Joe Kort. The premise of Gay Affirmative Psychotherapy is that It isn't enough to be gay friendly, you must also be gay informed.