Frost’s poem “Mending Wall” uses simple and elegant language to describe a dilemma that operates within each of us. One part of us, like the narrator’s neighbor, may insist on approaching the world with our defenses up, like well-behaved and good neighbors. But another part of us may also declare Something there is that doesn’t love a wall / That wants it down. We yearn for a certain closeness, authenticity, or reprieve that comes from allowing our walls to go down.

As a psychotherapist, I take immense interest in the barriers we erect - consciously and unconsciously - in our lives and in our relationships. I pay close attention to how those barriers operate in my patients’ lives and even during appointments themselves. Sometimes we need more connection with others but without our knowing it, we find ways to avoid or withdraw. Our walls go up. At other times, we are eager to feel more independence in our lives, but we feel intruded upon. Our walls are not working. This can happen as much in our personal lives as our professional lives, and is often linked to obstacles we have faced over time. In my psychotherapy practice, I try to observe these patterns and bring them to the attention of my patients. At times, what happens in our lives “out there” gets repeated within the psychotherapy relationship itself. In this way, psychotherapy becomes a powerful tool for understanding lived experience in vivo and creates an opportunity to effect lasting change through the therapeutic encounter itself.

I aim to understand the stories of your life, how these stories tend to repeat in various ways across time, and work with you to decide whether and how you might want to effect change in those patterns that constitute your life.