Are you looking for a psychologist in McLean, VA?

Cutting is a self-harm behavior where a person feels some sense of emotional relief from cutting oneself with a knife or a blade. Cutting, like other self-harm behaviors, is often used to relieve such emotions as emptiness, loneliness, sadness and anger.

Parents and teenagers must navigate a difficult process as the teenager begins to separate from the parents and form his or her separate identity. I work with both parents and teenagers to help in this process in terms of developing strategies for communication, conflict resolution and ways to begin connecting more effectively.

Psychotherapy is not only for a psychiatric diagnosis, like depression or anxiety, some enter therapy to process transitions so that they may better manage their life and achieve their goals. Some people dread the life transition they are facing or fear change; therapy helps these people to feel enriched by the life event and/or develop an enhanced sense of meaning or purpose as a result.

Panic attacks are episodes of intense fear and can often result from a chronic overload of anxiety. I help individuals to understand the underlying beliefs involved in the panic and to develop alternate ways to cope and manage panic symptoms.

Like all psychotherapy, couples therapy is a process, but one in which I work to help both members of a partnership to feel heard while also working for measurable change that couples can notice and know when they are making progress.

I help clients to develop strategies and techniques for managing feeling chronically overloaded by work and personal stress. These techniques include talk therapy, mindfulness, and limit setting. Stress is a result of feeling like your capacity is far smaller than what life is throwing at you and feeling that you cannot possibly work on growing your capacity because life keeps throwing more and more turmoil your way.

Some clients report that, although they want to have relationships and connections with others, they are bombarded by chronic and acute anxiety when faced with new social situations or people. I work with social anxiety by helping individuals to understand their underlying beliefs and fears about these situations, and to develop increased confidence in social situations.

Individuals who have difficulty with emotional regulation report that they are constantly intruded upon by their feelings or find that they are unable to feel the normal range of human emotion. Their emotional reactions are highly reactive, and they experience emotional lability.