 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
  |
|
|
Therapists:
My specialties are couples therapy and work with people going through or having experienced divorce. When trying to repair a relationship I focus on establishing effective communications and interactive patterns. I try to help build bridges between disparate views of the situation to enable the couple to stay in the work until we can resolve the differences and build on the strengths that already exist. When indicated I help the couple root out the causes of their difficulties and use that awareness to prevent similar breakdowns from occurring in the future. In regard to divorce I offer both therapy and divorce coaching. Therapy focuses on the symptoms and psychological consequences of divorce, including depression, anxiety, and other common reactions. Therapy helps individuals to express and process the intense feelings and grief divorce produces, and to move on. Divorce coaching is a structured, goal-directed service specifically designed to help individuals or couples divorce in as healthy a manner as possible, thus reducing the psychological and emotional harm to themselves and their children. It utilizes education, assignments, and exercises geared toward managing the situations divorce creates, and helps to planfully move to a productive post-divorce environment. A free brochure describing divorce coaching in more detail is available. Just call (617) 965-2147 and one will be sent right out to you. Aside from my specialties I also work with a wide variety of other frequently occurring problems such as anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, and adjustment to troubling life circumstances. I look at these aspects of experience as relevant to the quality of life and the way one is functioning: thinking, behavior, and the dynamic patterns which can unconsciously affect the way someone is living his or her life. My clients and I work on all three. The way people think can become distorted or narrowed, unwittingly trapping the person in assumptions that are self-defeating. Similarly, people fall into habitual patterns of behavior that are unproductive. Finally, themes can get played out that have their roots in one’s history and need to be understood and resolved in order to move ahead freer and more fulfilled. Stylistically, I am on the more active end of the spectrum of therapists. My view of psychotherapy is that of a collaboration in which I bring expertise about problems and how to resolve them while the clients are the experts on themselves. Sessions revolve around conversations and mutual problem solving. By putting our expertise together and building a solid working partnership, I anticipate that my clients and I can achieve successful outcomes most of the time. I have been in clinical practice for over thirty years, having received my Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in 1970. In addition to my clinical work and research, I am Director of the Center for the Study of Psychology and Divorce at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, where I also teach in the doctoral program. I have authored two books and have served as president of the Massachusetts Psychological Association and as a member of the Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association.
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Needham Psychotherapy
Associates |
||||||||||||||||||||
Sanford
Portnoy, Ph.D.