First, a little bit about me. I am a psychiatrist certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, Inc. (ABPN). This is known as being a Diplomate in Psychiatry. Now, I did my residency training at UT Southwestern, here in Dallas. This a program that is well known for its balance of medical psychiatry with psychotherapeutic approaches. I’ve been trained, in addition to conducting psychiatric evaluations and medication management, in several different types of psychotherapy. I like to bring all of these treatment modalities to the table in helping you get better, as we talk together and agree on our individual treatment plan for you.

In my experience, psychotherapy can be invaluable in helping someone get real benefit from treatment. Now, there are different kinds of psychotherapy. For example, there is cognitive-behavioral therapy. This therapy focuses on evaluating negative thoughts objectively, and often realizing that there are cognitive distortions leading to negative and painful emotions. Re-evaluating those negative thoughts more objectively often leads to a more reasonable approach toward life, thereby lifting anxiety and depression. Next, there is psychoanalytic psychotherapy, which focuses on negative patterns of behavior. Often, these bad patterns (i.e. relationships, problems at work, inhibitions) have unconscious conflicts at their root that originate from childhood. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy has the goal to understand these conflicts and unconscious mechanisms. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy can be a highly effective method of treatment.

If you do decide on therapy, though, it is important to know that it is work, and like most things in life, there are usually no quick fixes. It does take time and commitment, but the rewards can be great.

Finally, there is a kind of special treatment, a treatment called psychoanalysis that I offer, that has the potential for great therapeutic benefit. Now, psychoanalysis is not for everybody. It is a kind of intense psychoanalytic psychotherapy. In this kind of therapy, you lie on a couch, meeting frequently, four to five times a week, over a long period of time. This is necessary for the intensity of the treatment. Over time, we rediscover your life’s narrative together, explore deeply and even experience together in the treatment your unconscious conflicts, as they come alive - in the safety of the analytic setting.

This allows us to become aware of the underlying sources of your difficulties (not just intellectually, but also emotionally). This re-experiencing is a natural process called transference. This is what enables deep change in long-lasting ways of your behavior, your relationships with others, and even your sense of self – that is, if you want to.

The following link from the American Psychoanalytic Association’s (APsaA) has more information on psychoanalysis:

ABOUT PSYCHOANALYSIS

(I am an active member of APsaA, regularly attending their scientific meetings, and I do work on their committees)