Why Psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy comes from the Greek word psyche, which means "soul," and the Greek word therapia, which means "healing." Long before there were psychotherapists, there were people who listened to others with their heart, and when the time was right, spoke from their heart. Listening with and speaking from the heart can bring healing. When Light listens and speaks to Light, that is, when one soul listens and speaks to another soul, healing can occur.

Are you more than your diagnosis?
The answer is yes, but far too often people reduce themselves and others to a diagnosis, which may in fact be wrong, simply wrong. If you are essentially a diagnosis, then the next step is to refer to you by that diagnosis, right? "How was your weekend, Major Depressive Disorder?" You are indeed much more than your diagnosis, and you are more than your job title, your checking account balance, or your relationship status. Fundamentally, you are the Spiritual having a Mortal (flesh) experience, which is far from easy, and from time to time you need another's help.

Robert helps clients face and work through these issues the most often.

Addiction: realizing when no doesn't mean no
When no doesn't mean no you have more than likely crossed the line, the boundary, that separates indulgence from addiction. It is as if the part of your brain that hears and carries out the command no has simply shut down or stopped working. Or it is as if a private has staged a coup, wresting control from the general. That private is almost always a younger self, a confused, scared, sometimes selfish younger self that behaves without regard for consequences. Robert can help you regain control, executive control, over your life so that the word no once again means no.

Stepping away from addiction toward recovery is the adventure of a lifetime! Over time, you will become adept at distinguishing who and what is life-giving from who and what is life-taking; people, places, and things will change, which they must, so that you don't go back to the emptiness, the hollowness, the illusion, and the lies, which prevented you from living fully. If you use proven tools, namely, exercise, meditation, prayer, and Twelve-Step meetings, in addition to psychotherapy, you can step from darkness into light.

Anxiety: feeling immobilized by fear
From time to time you experience anxiety. You get anxious. It is as if you turn the canvass of your life over to a fear-prone inner artist who imprisons you in a landscape of fear, a fearscape. Because thoughts give way to words and words give way to actions, your initial fear can cause you to withdraw, to isolate. Only if you can identify around whom or what you feel anxious, paying particular attention to your thoughts, can you stop your fear-prone inner artist from isolating you so that you can connect with others in meaningful and real ways.

Depression: seeing through a tunnel
People experience depression in different ways. Some report feeling as though they are in a dark tunnel looking out, and others describe how everything seems to be difficult, heavy. Symptoms such as these typically worsen or grow more intense in the dark of winter. Depression may be due to a change of seasons, or it may be due to a traumatic event. More often than not depression indicates that you have become stuck, stuck (usually through no fault of your own) in the emotional pain surrounding trauma. With Robert's help, you can jumpstart the healing process, pull yourself out of the rut and get yourself back onto the road.

Grief: existing but not living
Those with eyes to see are able to see a spark of the Divine, a Drop of Light from the Ocean of Light, in every person, every animal, indeed, every thing. The beings with whom you share your life, whether they are people or animals, are important to you on deep levels. The one who was your companion, your friend, and your teacher, the one who radiated compassion, love, and understanding, is dead. Words cannot convey how you feel. Robert will help you to grieve--which you may not have given yourself permission to do--to gradually accept your loss, to memorialize this special being, and to take the steps necessary to once again experience wholeness.

Loneliness: playing the outsider
Whether Robert is giving a workshop or working with someone in an individual or group setting, he inevitably asks, "Do you feel alone or isolated?" More often than not, the response is "yes." Most people feel lonely once in a while, even if they have a supportive family, friend, and / or partner, but you feel lonely nearly all the time. You see yourself as an outsider and feel as though you don't fit in, which is painful. Robert can help you to identify what role, if any, you are playing to further your loneliness and how to stop and successfully integrate your life into the lives of other people.

Relationships: looking in the wrong places
If you are capable of breathing, you are capable of entering into a committed relationship. So, if you are single and want to be coupled, relax; your relationship status will change, if you change. You may be one of those people who keeps looking in the wrong places and as a result winds up with the wrong person over and over again. With Robert's help, you will look at your relationship history in order to identify patterns of behavior, which keep you from the life you want and deserve. And you will explore the differences and similarities between romance and sex and between friendship and relationship.

Sexuality: believing the lies
From any center, the center of an organization, the center of society, emanates the majority opinion, the party line, which can be fraught with lies. A lot of truth, however, can be found at the margins. If you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, queer / questioning, or intersex and / or you have a negative view of human sexuality, you must step toward the margins to more fully understand and embrace yourself. For example, at the center of many religious traditions you will hear the same old lie, "Homosexuality is a sin." If you move toward the margins, however, you will encounter theologians and thinkers who have arrived at a very different conclusion. You will hear the truth that "sex is participation in the Divine life, and sexual orientation is a Divine kiss, hearkening us to relate to ourselves, to one another, to life around us, to the universe, and to the Source, the Light Within All, in our own unique way."