THE APPROACH
Here’s how I actually work.
A few tools I draw on in session, and the one thing every single one of them is in service of.
None of this replaces the relationship. It’s all in service of it.
30 to 40 minutes, just a conversation.
THE RELATIONSHIP
This relationship itself is what creates change, more than any single technique.
Safety comes from the relationship we build together.
Before any technique or approach, there’s usually a quieter question underneath. Is this actually going to be safe? Here’s my real answer: safety isn’t a technique I apply, it’s the relationship itself, and building that is the work I hold as most important, above any single approach on this page.
It’s not about how long it takes. It’s about actually getting somewhere.
Getting to know you, specifically, who you are and what you need, is what every approach on this page is built around. That’s not just my belief, it’s one of the most consistent findings in decades of therapy research: the relationship itself is what creates change, more than any single technique.
This isn’t about how long it takes. It’s about actually getting somewhere, at whatever pace gets you there. I’d rather move at the pace that’s real for you than rush toward something that doesn’t hold.
“That question was off, Cyrus, and it landed badly.” I can hold that.
I’m human in this room with you. Research on the therapeutic relationship backs this up, moments where something between us needs repair, followed by honest repair, tend to build a stronger alliance than one with no friction at all. If something I say lands wrong, or a question misses, I’d rather you bring that back to me directly. “That question was off, Cyrus, and it landed badly”. I can hold that. Trust in this room grows through moments like that as much as through the ease.
THE TOOLS I DRAW ON
Different tools, all pointed at the same thing.
01
An Integrative Approach
What you know and what you feel do not always move together. You can understand something completely, and still feel nothing shift. Or your body can be holding something, a tightness, a heaviness, a bracing, that your thinking mind has not caught up to yet, and has no words for.
I bring this in when talking about something has stopped creating movement, and it feels like time to bring attention to what is actually happening in your body while we talk. I might ask what you’re noticing right now, in your chest, your jaw, your hands, not to analyze it, just to let it be part of the conversation. Integrative Body Psychotherapy (IBP), developed by Jack Lee Rosenberg, works from the idea that real change happens when insight and sensation are both engaged, not one without the other. When the nervous system moves toward activation, tension, urgency, a racing quality, or toward flatness, numbness, a sense of shutting down, that’s the body telling you something your thinking mind alone can’t always translate.
When sensation and understanding finally start to meet, something loosens that talking alone couldn’t reach. Decisions get easier. The ease isn’t something you think your way into, it’s something you feel arrive.
02
Parts Work
You want to leave and you want to stay, both at once, and neither feeling is lying to you. Or you hear a voice in your head that will not let up, too much, not enough, you should have known better, and no amount of accomplishment ever seems to quiet it for long.
I’ll often ask, when something like that shows up, whose voice that actually is, and what it might be trying to protect you from. This is what Internal Family Systems (IFS), developed by Richard Schwartz, calls being in conflict between parts, rather than a single unified self. A part that pushes for control and perfection, sometimes as that harsh inner critic, is usually trying to keep something else from surfacing. A part that reacts fast, through avoidance, distraction, or a response that feels bigger than the moment, is usually trying to put out a fire before it spreads. Underneath both is often an older, more tender part, one carrying pain that got pushed out of view because it felt like too much to hold at the time. Underneath all of it is Self, the calm, curious core that isn’t a part at all, but the seat of clarity and choice, and getting you back in touch with that Self is a lot of what I’m listening for.
We go at whatever pace each part can tolerate, nothing gets forced into the open before it’s ready. That critic, like every part, once had a job to do. No part is wrong here, only overworking or pushed into hiding, and when the parts start trusting Self to lead instead of competing for control, you start to feel less at war with yourself.
03
Attachment-Informed Work
A delayed text reply sends you spinning, checking your phone, replaying the conversation, wondering what you did wrong. Or someone starts getting close, and instead of relief you feel an urge to pull back, sometimes before you’ve even noticed yourself doing it.
I bring an attachment lens in when a reaction feels bigger than the moment calls for, or when the same pattern keeps showing up across different relationships. Sometimes I’ll name what I’m noticing as it happens, right here between us, since this relationship is often where the pattern becomes easiest to actually see. Attachment theory, developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, describes the patterns we form early in life for managing closeness and distance with the people we depend on, and those patterns don’t stay in childhood, they keep operating underneath adult relationships, friendships, and even how safe it feels to ask for help.
A secure pattern generally means trusting that connection will hold, even through conflict. An anxious pattern often means craving closeness and reading distance as danger. An avoidant pattern often means valuing independence so much that closeness itself starts to feel like a threat. And a disorganized pattern, often shaped by inconsistency or fear in that first relationship, can mean wanting closeness and fearing it at the same time. None of these are flaws, they were intelligent adaptations to something, once. Once you can see your own pattern clearly, and a partner’s, you get an actual choice in the moment, instead of just reacting the way you always have.
04
Family of Origin Work
You hear yourself say something and it lands strange, because it’s exactly what your mother or father used to say, the very thing you swore you’d never repeat. Or you notice you’re playing the same role you played growing up, the peacekeeper, the one who disappears rather than cause conflict, the one who takes care of everyone except themselves, or the one who learned that taking up space was the only way to be noticed.
I bring this work in when a pattern keeps showing up and the present situation alone doesn’t fully explain it. Together we trace the thread back, not to assign blame to anyone, but because your family taught you, often without a single word being said, what love, conflict, and safety actually look like. Those early lessons became a template, and most people carry it into every close relationship they build as adults without ever choosing to. I’ll often ask what you learned to do to stay safe or stay loved in that home, and we go there at whatever pace feels right, nothing here is rushed.
There’s something specific that tends to happen once the origin becomes clear: the pattern stops feeling like a flaw and starts feeling like it made sense. “Ah, I’m this way because of that”. Carl Rogers, one of the founders of modern psychotherapy, called this a curious paradox, that it’s only once we accept ourselves exactly as we are that change actually becomes possible. That’s what I’m listening for in this work, not just where the pattern came from, but the moment it starts to make sense to you. Understanding where it began isn’t the finish line, it’s what makes the acceptance real enough to hold. And once you’re not fighting yourself anymore, change tends to stop feeling so far away.
05
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
You’re not really fighting about the dishes. One of you brings something up, and the other goes quiet, or the other explodes. Either reaction pulls you further from what’s actually underneath it, and by the end neither of you has said what actually mattered.
When I see this happening in the room, I’ll often slow the moment right down and ask what each of you is actually afraid of underneath what’s being said. Sue Johnson, the developer of EFT, calls this the negative cycle, one partner pursuing, the other withdrawing, both of you doing the same thing underneath, protecting yourselves from a bond that feels shaky. EFT treats emotion not as the problem but as information, a signal pointing to a real need: am I safe with you, do I still matter to you.
I bring this in when a couple is stuck in the same fight on repeat, different trigger, same ending, and we go slowly enough that both of you can actually hear what’s underneath it, not just what’s on the surface. Once that becomes visible to both of you, together, the fight itself tends to change shape, because you’re finally responding to what’s real.
06
Gottman Method
The same argument, different day, and you can both feel it coming before it even starts. Or nothing is technically wrong yet, but something has shifted, a sharper tone, a little less patience, the beginning of keeping score without meaning to.
I’ll often bring specific, research-backed language into session here, naming a pattern directly if I see it, so you both have a shared way to talk about what’s happening instead of just feeling stuck in it. Decades of research by John and Julie Gottman identified four specific patterns, criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling, that predict whether a relationship is heading toward trouble. Their work also identified the opposite, the habits that keep a relationship strong: turning toward each other in small everyday moments, staying genuinely curious about your partner’s inner world, and repairing well after things go sideways, because every relationship has moments that go sideways.
I bring these tools in alongside the deeper emotional work, not instead of it, giving you something concrete to practice between sessions, not just insight, but something to actually do differently the next time it starts to happen at home.
The Free consultation
If something here resonated, a free consultation is a good place to start.
Thirty to forty minutes, just a conversation to see how this feels.