My main reason for developing this website is to have an open platform for writing a user-friendly manual about my approach to psychotherapy.  While it will take three or so years to develop this manual, the journey of 1000 miles begins with a step and this website is my step right now. I invite clients and colleagues and any interested parties to comment on whatever is useful for them and anything that is not.  The manual itself will be like a cafeteria—take what you like and leave the rest.  My manual seeks to be a personal example of the much larger AMBIT manual developed by the AMBIT team at the Anna Freud Centre in London, England. (See Dimension 1) (see here)  The AMBIT team dreams of a world-wide “community of practice” in which interested colleagues share their treatment of persons with complex problems and freely adapt techniques and approaches learned from each other.  Check out their manual. It is truly amazing and all their tools can be freely utilized, as long as one give credit to those who developed the tools.  More about this will be discussed as my manual develops.

I call my manual The Five Dimensions of Meaningful Change: Mind, Body, Soul, System, Story. It has been evolving in my head and in my body and in my soul for the past 35 years.  I started my private practice of clinical social work on June 1, 1985.  Over the years, the theme of assisting my clients in making meaningful, intentional change has been both a constant inspiration (as I saw clients overcome serious internal and external dilemmas) and also a constant challenge (as I found that no one strategy worked all the time and that historically difficult problems did not change easily).  In this challenging and inspirational work, I have found four important resources:

1. LEARNING FROM MASTER THERAPISTS: One hallmark of the development of my clinical practice has been my active seeking out of trainings and workshops with some of the great therapists and theorists of our time. I learned that I did not have to “invent the wheel” myself, since there were numerous, well-documented approaches that helped a significant number of clients make needed changes in their lives. I have been particularly drawn to those theories that, in my experience, were both intellectually energizing and also practically useful (“the difference that makes a difference” (Gregory Bateson—see Dimensions 1-5 in this manual). While I have learned from many great giants, I have also found my own voice about how, specifically, to implement the approaches developed by others in a way that seeks to honor the uniqueness of each client or clients.
2. INTEGRATING INTO MY OWN PERSONAL LIFE THE MAJOR LIFE-PRINCIPLES OF THE THERAPIES I TEACH OTHERS: Family therapist Jay Haley (see Dimension 4) once said that therapists should not practice any therapy technique that they would not want used on themselves or their loved ones.  Haley’s injunction is consistent with the body of research that has consistently paired positive outcomes of clients with therapist genuiness and authenticity.  While I cannot have had every experience my clients have had, I believe that I need to learn how to apply key change principles in my own life so that there is consistency in how I both support and challenge my clients as they seek to apply similar change principles in their own lives.  This self-challenge also is guaranteed to keep me humble, for while I do seek mastery in the art of living well, I am also aware that, as meditation teachers tell us, we all need to notice whenever we return to “beginners mind.”  That returning to the start keeps me aware of how challenging true, deep change is.
3. MAINTAINING A SUPPORTIVE COMMUNITY OF OTHER GOOD CLINICIANS: I have consistently been in three different monthly peer support groups to which I can bring my own dilemmas in being a helpful presence with a wide-range of clients and their wide-range of presenting problems.  These support groups have always been important to me in providing the best therapy possible for my clients, but they have been absolutely essential for my own well-being during times of great societal stress—such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and its aftermath in New Orleans and such as the massive stressors of 2020—the  corona virus crisis, which is happening in the context of our country and our world being actively pulled apart by political and social forces that divide us, rather than unite us.  No one person can long stand and fight these larger forces—it takes a village.  I frame this as a battle for the controlling narrative of our lives—a ruling narrative of love and compassion or a ruling narrative of fear and hatred.  Of course, I am also supported by my family, friends, and my own faith community.  However, having three professional peer support groups keeps me able to fully maintain confidentiality standards regarding the challenges each client brings to me and, in addition, to maintain good boundaries between my professional work and the rest of my life.
4. ALWAYS, ALWAYS REMAINING OPEN TO LEARNING FROM MY CLIENTS: In the last 20 or so years, I have been influenced by several different theoretical approaches that emphasize a “not-knowing stance.”  Both from family systems thinkers and from attachment theorists, this not-knowing stance helps me stay appropriately humble as a therapist.  For example, cultural humility enhances the likelihood that an older white male like me can meet clients where they are, even if they are of a different age, race, gender or sexual identity, spirituality, temporarily fully abled or not, or of another cultural background or of another life-shaping experience.  One of my trainers (Peter Fuggle—see Dimension 1) called this being open to learning “what’s it like to be you” and to authentically offer “to be of help if I can.”