The problems we experience in our relationships with others are among the major sources of pain in human life. The central focus in my work is to help people explore their unique life experience and make sense of their difficulties in a way which is both deeply meaningful and healing.
The focus in “Inquiring Deeply” is deepening your understanding of your emotional life. By exploring your relationship with other people, you cultivate self-awareness; by exploring your relationship with yourself, you cultivate more harmonious relationships with others.
It is only when we can be sufficiently intimate with ourselves that we can be comfortable with others. Self-intimacy means feeling connected to all parts of ourselves and the full range of our experiences – especially those parts that we may dislike or that make us feel uncomfortable, ashamed, or vulnerable. This means having the courage to embrace whatever we find, including painful judgments we hold about ourselves or others.
The practice of asking questions systematically is called inquiry. Inquiry is not the same as analyzing or thinking about a question. As an awareness practice, inquiry means to live in the question of something, to consciously engage our experience in a way which invites it to unfold.
Psychotherapy helps you deepen your understanding of your emotional experience in dialogue with another by helping you look deeply within. By digging down to the interpersonal roots of what is bothering you, mindful dynamic psychotherapy helps you gain insight into the psychological and relational forces that have shaped who you are.