Are you looking for a psychologist in Friendship Heights, D.C.?

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.

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.

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.

I help clients develop strategies and techniques for managing intense anger or aggressive episodes. These techniques involve learning ways to “cool off” and validate underlying feelings so that they may be communicated more effectively. Generally speaking, difficulty with anger is typically the result of a person having difficulty regulating their emotions.

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.

Some clients report difficulty with their attention span and trouble concentrating. I help these individuals develop strategies (sometimes with the addition of medication as prescribed by a psychiatrist) to increase executive functioning, planning and follow through skills.

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.

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.