CLINICAL FOCUS
Mid-way through the journey in life, you have woken up to find yourself in a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Let us help you return to your path.
Start making progress again.
We all wish to improve our lives and cast off the inertia of stagnation, but at Dynamic Change Psychotherapy, we’re not here to help you “optimize” your life. Living your #bestlife is not truly about optimizing efficiency or material success. It is about understanding who you are and how you’d like to experience the world. Oftentimes we find ourselves out of alignment in our lives. Our identities get confused by a world that tells us what to want and who to be. Knowing who you actually are makes it a lot easier to separate the signal from the noise. After all, there’s a reason the ancient Greeks implored us to “know thyself.” Here at Dynamic Change Psychotherapy, we are uniquely skilled and interested in helping you do just that.
Connect with people who welcome all of you.
As therapists we consider it a great privilege to learn about & hold the richness of our patients’ individuality, uniqueness, and complexity. You hold multitudes – not just because of all of the life experiences you carry, but also because of the many aspects that contribute to who you are. We understand that identity is fluid and evolving, and we also understand that how a person identifies theirself is complex. At Dynamic Change Psychotherapy, we are concerned with multiple dimensions of personal identity, including (social constructions of) race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, family of origin, birthplace, ancestral heritage, and spiritual beliefs.
Identity too often comes under assault by a world that can be very cruel. We offer a welcoming space to discuss these realities and how they impact your self-understanding and development. We are all embedded in the intersectional complexity of an evolving world, and as such we consider the immense psychological effects of cultural context, injustice, oppressive systems/institutions, and trauma.
Therapy for thinkers, dreamers, and creatives.
Who We Help
Adults ✧ Couples ✧ BIPOC ✧ LGBTQ ✧ Gender Queer ✧ Trans ✧ Non-binary ✧ Polyamorous ✧ Kinksters ✧ Adult Children of Problem Drinkers ✧ Class Transitioners ✧ Students ✧ Young Adults ✧ Gen Xers ✧ Elders ✧ Caretakers ✧ Former Gifted and Talented Children who became Anxious and Depressed Adults ✧ Founders ✧ Young Urban Professionals ✧ Global Citizens ✧ Cultural Migrators ✧ Parents ✧ Singles ✧ Intellectuals ✧ Weirdos ✧ Wanderers ✧ Poets
What We Treat
Anxiety (social, general worry, panic, chronic) ✧ Relational trauma ✧ Lasting effects of childhood adversity ✧ Depression (first time or recurring) ✧ Life transitions ✧ Grief and loss ✧ Identity development ✧ Perfectionism ✧ Procrastination ✧ Trauma (including PTSD and/or complex trauma) ✧ Chronic pain ✧ Chronic illness ✧ Substance use and recovery support ✧ Relationship difficulties ✧ ADHD ✧ Borderline personality ✧ Burnout ✧ Academic and workplace difficulties ✧ Career counseling ✧ Codependency ✧ Family conflict ✧ Historically misunderstood ✧ Low self-esteem ✧ Sleep problems and insomnia ✧ Personality difficulties ✧ Cultural issues ✧ Impacts of systemic oppression ✧ Minority stress ✧ Personal growth
Find out if we can help you.
Truth be told, you’ve already taken the first step. Even if you’re feeling nervous or daunted, you found your way here. We want to give you the support to change your life.
How We Work
Our practice was founded on the principles of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (hence dynamic change). We help people resolve psychological suffering by the art of therapeutic conversation. This is the real deal – not just swapping texts with a therapy bot. What makes it different? Well, according to the experts (Shedler 2010):
1) A Focus on Feelings - Not just getting caught up in our endless ferris wheels of circular thinking, or the runaway trains of catastrophic worry. Not just debating in our minds, with endless point-counterpoints. We integrate emotions *with* thoughts to get you out of your head and into your heart. What’s true for you? What do you need? What emotions show up? What does your gut tell you about this decision? It’s the careful art of listening to your insides, not just brilliant ideas that don’t hold water.
2) Exploring Attempts to Hide From Ourselves - Psychodynamic therapy looks at ways that we try to avoid conflict, avoid emotional distress, hide away from ourselves, and keep ourselves far from our deep emotions. Connecting to the roots of our suffering means that therapy is sometimes painful - because we’re already in pain, and the giant bandaid we put over it is starting to leak. We help you explore the survival skills you developed to try to avoid pain, and how to tolerate and welcome your full experience – Good, Bad, and Ugly. All feelings are welcome here.
3) Looking at Patterns - Whether you’re doing the same damn thing over and over again, or keep having the same bad boss, or ending relationships too quickly, there are probably patterns in your symptoms, coping attempts, and relationships. We won’t bust out the red string, but we’ll make connections between the past and how you do things over time.
4) Respecting the Past - Faulkner wrote "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Well, there’s a certain truth to it. We live out experiences from our past over and over, trying to shift them over time. By understanding the role of the past in our present day, we make breakthroughs in what we decide to keep for the future. It’s not just about how to feel less sad today, but it’s about understanding and respecting that this sadness came from somewhere and has something meaningful to say.
5) Enhancing Relationships - People who need people aren’t just the luckiest people in the world, they’re also the *only* people. We are interdependent and inherently social creatures who live in communities of varying size and degree. So whether we’re talking about your co-workers, your family, your bestie, or your SO, your therapist wants to hear about who is important to you and how your relationship feels.
6) Examining the Therapy Relationship - We each come to therapy with unique sets of relationship templates. And, as the connection between you and your therapist is, in fact, a relationship (albeit a special and professional one), those previous relationship expectations, needs, and disappointments might play out in how we connect with each other. Psychodynamic therapists know how to use the therapy relationship as a lab to experiment with how you connect to others, and how to notice and acknowledge the feelings in therapy that give insight to your inner world, using transference and countertransference. IYKYK ;-)
7) Welcoming All of Your Internal World - When you’re meeting with the right person, and learning how to speak openly and honestly about even the uncomfortable stuff, you may find that finally there is a place where you can share not just your memories and experiences, but also what you imagine. Psychodynamic therapy includes learning about your “desires, fears, fantasies, dreams, and daydreams,” (Shedler, 2010) – even ones you hadn’t fully articulated to yourself before.
➡ Why bother with all this stuff? Well, the goal of psychodynamic psychotherapy is to increase a person’s ability to love, to work, and to play. We think you deserve just that.
“Ogni mali nun veni pri nòciri.”
- Sicilian proverb