REFLECTIONS ON PSYCHOLOGY AND THERAPEUTIC PROCESS

When patients contact me to make an initial appointment, I tell them about my beginning process. Specifically, I explain that for me to get as clear a sense as possible about what led them to pursue a therapeutic relationship – whether psychotherapy or psychoanalysis – we will engage in the following: An initial 90-minute intake appointment, where we discuss immediate concerns, problems, and reasons for seeking professional consultation at this time, where I obtain historical and other relevant background information; A session where patients complete several scientifically developed, objective, reliable, and valid measures to assess problems in living as well as interpersonal strengths, needs, and vulnerabilities, which give us textured information about one’s beliefs, experiences, thoughts, and feelings; A 90-minute feedback appointment, where we review the findings together, with the broad objective of better understanding what brought you to my office.

In counseling, psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis, both patient and therapist are hypothesis ‘testers’ moment-to-moment in an effort to construct models to read or make sense out of current and anticipated future experiences. Each bring to the therapeutic relationship family-of-origin interaction and relationship templates that filter interpretation or help them better construe and read moment-to-moment slices of time based on their past, lived experience.

For years, I have studied human trauma and psychological stamina, learning from those who strove to effectively manage challenging and/or traumatic circumstances without developing psychological or psychiatric symptoms. I resonate with the current trend in psychology to focus on adaptation, grit, and how to find personal happiness, prosperity, and vitality rather than view problems principally from the lens of disease and defect.

I am a cisgendered, heterosexual, Caucasian male who continues – especially in the current climate – to examine and attempt to understand the ways socialization as a white male of privilege can unconsciously influence my clinical work. I do take affirming stance toward women, gays, LGBTQs, African-Americans, Asian American, Latino-Americans, immigrants, and others, and remain open to having the difficult conversations that might in the process peel back layers of socialization that might have, out of my awareness, led me to not recognize or be aware of what I do not know about the life experiences of non-whites.