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Therapists:
I have practiced clinical psychology for twenty-six years, and I love my work! People ask me, “Don’t you get tired of listening to everyone’s problems?” Well, I can’t think of anything more valuable than what I do: helping people explore, understand and work through the deepest problems, conflicts, and struggles of their lives and their relationships. I struggle and you struggle--it’s the human condition. I consider myself enormously privileged to share in this profoundly important and deeply personal process, this joint undertaking of trying to sort it out and work it through. And when people have worked it through and have arrived at a greater sense of centeredness, satisfaction and well being, I feel immensely gratified that I have had the honor of participating in this shared endeavor. Over the years I have come to understand that the process really works, that people can get relief from depression, anxiety, and other troubling feelings and behaviors and that they can heal and live more satisfying lives. In my view the therapeutic process is most useful and effective when the therapist and patient see themselves as collaborators in a shared journey of personal exploration. Together they construct understandings and develop insights regarding the individual’s complex and unique life experiences and the meanings attached to those experiences. Too frequently in the practice of mental health, people are pressed into and defined by rigid diagnoses that fail to capture the richness, subtlety and uniqueness inherent in any person’s life narrative. The therapist’s challenge is to embrace the complexities and uncertainties, to remain undaunted by what is mysterious or unknown, and to feel assured himself and to assure the person he is working with that the journey ventured and fully engaged will yield depth in understandings, and in time will facilitate resolution and change. You probably want to know about my training and my practice. First, I will tell you about my training. I am a developmental psychologist by degree (my masters from Columbia University and my doctorate from the University of Illinois). Knowing that I wanted to practice clinical psychology, I completed two years of clinical training after finishing my doctorate, one primarily with adults at Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown, CT and one with children at the Judge Baker Guidance Center, an affiliate of the Children’s Hospital and the Harvard Medical School in Boston. Having worked with children and adults on inpatient psychiatric services for four years, I feel confident and skilled in working with people who are experiencing acute and severe emotional crises. And I enjoy working intensively with people, even up to four or five times a week. I am qualified to do intensive work with adults, having completed my adult psychoanalytic training at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis in 1999, where I am now on the faculty. In addition, I am in the process of completing advanced training in the combined Child Analysis program of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and the Psychoanalytic Institute of New England. As a result of these training experiences, I have expertise in providing intensive treatments for children and adults. Second, I will tell you about my practice. I have a general psychotherapy practice: I see children from age three through adolescence, and also adults. I work with individuals, couples and families. Roughly sixty percent of my practice is with children, adolescents and their families. I love doing play therapy with children: I have a large sun-lit attic playroom that is stocked with toys and games. Unlike adults who will talk about their problems, children express their issues, feelings and conflicts in the actions of their play. My work is to join as an actor in the child’s play and at the same time to understand and, when appropriate, interpret the feelings and conflicts that lie beneath the surface of the actions in the play. I am totally impressed with the effectiveness of intensive treatment with children using play. Of course as children become young adolescents, play gives way to talking, often about activities, relationships and about life. In later adolescence young people develop an emerging capacity for introspection, and the therapy is much like psychotherapy with an adult. Psychotherapies with children, adolescents and adults are in many ways distinctly different despite sharing many common characteristics. I am fascinated by them all: I enjoy each immensely. I am also deeply interested in parenting. In my view being a parent is the most demanding and complex work that any of us can undertake in a lifetime, far more challenging than anything that we do in our working professional lives. And yet in our culture there is no training for being a parent as there is for business, being an electrician, engineering, law, medicine, being a plumber, psychology and the list goes on. We as parents are most often thrown into action like raw recruits, green and without experience. I have three of my own and have had my share of struggles. I take great pleasure in brainstorming and working with parents as they wrestle with the complex adaptations that are required in successfully promoting their children’s development. In addition I have substantial experience in treating children and adults who have been victims of various types of childhood abuse. Play Therapy: How It Heals and Brings About Change in Children If you
want to meet another therapist click here. |
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Needham Psychotherapy
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Stephen
Robinson, Ph.D.