Psychodynamic and Relational
Psychodynamic Therapy in Santa Monica and Across California
This is the part of the work that answers the question you probably arrived with, which is rarely 'how do I manage this feeling' and almost always some version of why does this keep happening.
Psychodynamic and relational therapy looks at where a pattern started, what it was protecting you from at the time, and how it operates in your present life — including, usefully, how it shows up between the two of us in the room. That last part sounds abstract until the first time it happens, and then it is the least abstract thing in the hour.
What It Looks Like
Following a pattern back to where it made sense
Nobody develops a pattern for no reason. The thing you do now that costs you relationships was, at some earlier point, an intelligent solution to a real situation. Reading a room before you enter it is a skill if the room was genuinely unpredictable. Getting out first is sensible if leaving was always coming. The problem is that the solution outlived the situation and nobody told your nervous system.
So a lot of this work is archaeology with a practical purpose. We go back not to blame anyone or produce a tidy narrative, but because a pattern you understand the origin of loses a surprising amount of its grip. It stops feeling like character and starts feeling like history.
The relational half happens in the present tense. If you tend to manage people, you will manage me. If you expect to be tolerated rather than liked, you will read my silences that way. When that happens, we name it — carefully, and out loud — because it is the only place in your life where the pattern can be examined live, by two people, while it is actually occurring.
This is slower than skills work and considerably less tidy. It also tends to be the thing that makes change hold, because it changes what you expect from people rather than only what you do about it.
In the Room
What tends to bring people to depth work
The same relationship, four times
Different people, same arc, same month it turns. When the cast changes and the plot does not, the useful question is about the plot rather than the cast.
Success that did not land
You got the thing. It changed nothing internal, and now you are quietly alarmed, because the plan assumed it would.
Therapy that went well and changed little
Skills were learned, insight was had, the pattern continued. Frequently this means the work never got near what the pattern was for.
A Realistic Timeframe
This part is not short, and I would rather say so
Some therapy is brief and focused, and I am happy to work that way when it fits. Attachment and trauma patterns are generally not in that category. Telling someone otherwise to make the first call easier is a small dishonesty that costs them later.
What it does not mean is that you are locked into anything. We review openly — what has shifted, what has not, whether the direction is right — and ending, pausing, or spacing sessions out are all legitimate outcomes we discuss out loud rather than drift into.
You should also expect to feel something toward me at some point, favorable or otherwise. That is not a derailment. It is the part of the work that is difficult to get any other way, and it is welcome in the room.
Honest Limits
What this approach will not do on its own
Understanding without tools leaves you articulate and overwhelmed. If your Tuesday nights are genuinely unmanageable, insight alone is not an adequate answer, and I will bring practical skills in alongside it rather than ask you to wait for the depth work to arrive.
I also will not promise outcomes or timelines. What I will do is tell you plainly what I think is happening, check whether the work is doing anything, and change the approach when it is not.
Where to Next
Related areas of the work
Free Consultation
Start with a conversation, not a commitment.
The first step is a free consultation call. We talk about what brings you here, what you have already tried, and whether working together makes sense. If I am not the right fit, I will say so and point you somewhere better.
- · You request a time on the form, and I confirm by email
- · Telehealth anywhere in California, or in person in Santa Monica
- · Private pay, with superbills for out-of-network reimbursement
- · 48 hours' notice for changes or cancellations
Or call the office at (213) 761-8555.