My Approach
I work within the framework of several disciplines including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Transpersonal Therapy, and using the 12 Steps as a framework for therapy, which was the focus of my doctoral dissertation and from which most of the content on this website comes from.
The work I do is not meant to serve as a substitute for individual involvement in 12-step support groups. For those who find fellowship, service, recovery, support, and freedom in those programs, therapy based on the steps can help them to deal with their psychological, emotional, and spiritual issues on a deeper level, and in a way that complements their involvement in the 12-step program.
However, for those who do not want to attend 12-step meetings, or who do not really qualify as full-blown addicts, but who are having difficulties in their lives, it offers a practical guide for healthy living that is simple to follow. For those individuals that need structure and concreteness, it can provide that. For those that need some measure of flexibility, it also offers that.
I have talked about CBT and its focus of treatment for people suffering from the ravages of addiction in the next section, and here I want to elaborate on the Transpersonal approach to therapy. Transpersonal-oriented counseling or therapy views the spiritual drive for unity as the primary, inborn, human motivational drive, with all other drives as subsets of it. It has been described as the therapy that that is focused primarily on recognizing and making use of ultimate states of being, as well as to help create, interpret, and understand transcendent (thus the Transpersonal dimension), mystical, or spiritual experiences, with my role being to help foster that and teach people to live out of their spirits/authentic selves.