Philosophy Of Psychotherapy

When asked about my approach to psychotherapy, the best description I’ve come up with is the analogy of working with my personal trainer who has helped me (and my wife) stay in the best physical shape I can achieve over the past 15 years.

I know I could work out on my own, but having a trainer who knows more about physical conditioning than I do (and keeps himself in excellent shape himself) pushes me to work out much harder and much more efficiently than I can do by myself.

I see psychotherapy, whether it be individual work, couples work, or group psychotherapy as a unique opportunity for people’s optimizing their emotional and psychological health and well-being in the same way. Just like our physical conditioning is always “improvable,” our capacity to lead happier, more satisfying and fulfilling lives is potentially endless and aspirational. This doesn’t mean that therapy never ends, but it does mean that in my opinion, anyone motivated to achieve more insight and understanding about themselves, their significant relationships, and their various roles in life can potentially benefit from psychotherapy.

But just like personal trainers adjust their workout routines for each individual person or couple depending on their goals and their own subjective needs, psychotherapy provides a relationship that must be developed in concert with each person, so it’s tailored to fit each person’s or couple’s unique wants and aspirations.

Because of this view of psychotherapy, my own experiences, my own personality, and of course my extensive training opportunities over a period of more than three decades is very central in my psychotherapy work.

I consider myself endlessly curious and motivated to learn everything I can about how people achieve happiness and understanding in this lifetime. Although I have had very extensive training in achieving my doctoral degree and participating in literally thousands of continuing education hours, the experiences I attribute most of my accumulated wisdom from is my 45-year marriage to another therapist, Lisa Makstein MSW, and our shared journey in raising two children who are now very successful and happy adults.

Along the way, we also collaborated to help start a thriving religious community and I have coached youth wrestling for 25 years which has taught me much about community building and how to devise successful plans to achieve significant personal goals.

My leadership positions on the Executive Boards of The Northern Virginia Academy of Clinical Psychologists, the Virginia Psychological Association and the American Academy of Psychotherapists, as well as the congregation I helped to create, have all provided me with a wide variety of challenges to hone my wisdom and problem-solving skills. Hopefully some of these accumulated experiences are ones that can provide the empathetic understanding I bring to bear in every day I talk to clients about their own struggles and questions in life.

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