Therapy for Individuals and Families

People come to see therapists for various reasons, but underneath most of them is a profound discomfort with themselves. Some of the most common symptoms of this are depression, anxiety, moodiness, over-sensitivity, irrational anger, and fear. Addiction, phobias and other self-defeating behaviors are ways of coping with both bad feelings and not feeling at all — that empty feeling.

Too many of us, as Plato suggested long ago, feel as if we're prisoners chained in a cave. We're too frightened by the shadows on the wall to go out. But real life is on the outside. It is possible to undo the chains and live in the sunshine, fulfilled and energetic, with a sense of clarity and calm.

My first goal is for my clients to feel very safe and comfortable with me and to know that I am not listening with a critical ear. How we proceed will then depend on the issues you bring in. There are effective methods I use for relieving depression, for working with insomnia, with anxiety, with phobias, and with a number of the other issues.

If you are willing, we will work together to discover what you do with your emotions: Are you allowing them to do the jobs they are meant to do (inform you/ relieve you/ enrich you) or did you sometime in your life learn to block them – a process that deprives us of our ability to rejoice as well as to sorrow.

I have extensive experience working with substance abusers and have found mental-health treatment valuable to nearly all addicts, no matter at what stage or how sound their recovery. Too often, recovered addicts settle for too little. I believe that people who constantly relapse have sound reasons for relapsing and may never acquire decent sobriety until they can delve into their pain.

SPECIALTIES

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Substance abuse (including cigarettes)
• Sex and love addiction
• Family therapy
• Enabling intimate relationships
• Increasing self-esteem
• Short and long-term therapy

EXPERIENCE & QUALIFICATIONS

• Four years’ post-graduate training at Family Service Agency of Marin in Child/Adult/Family program
• Three years as therapist at Henry Ohlhoff House North, residential treatment center for substance abuse
• Two years in private practice
• Level II certification in AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) – see aedpinstitute.org for details
• M.S., Dominican University of California
• Certificate, UC Berkeley Extension – Alcohol and Drug Abuse Studies
• Prior career as writer – author of Culture Shock! USA; Meditations for Surviving Without Cigarettes; and many articles

OFFICES

Marin Therapy Associates
610 D Street, 2nd Floor
San Rafael, CA 94901
(Click for map & Directions)

415-717-9053

Email Esther

Marin Therapy Association lists qualified psychotherapists whose current license to practice in the state of California has been verified. No organization can guarantee that every therapist will work effectively with every client and MTA has not verified information other than license to practice. All other information provided is the individual therapist's responsibility. All Marriage and Family Therapists are bound by the ethical standards of the profession of marriage and family therapy.