Individual Therapy

Ian also works with individuals who are experiencing anxiety, depression and other life challenges. Living as we do in a world of choice and possibility, many of us also feel an accompanying lack of external structure and experience a sense of groundlessness. Ian works with patients to excavate and articulate a "design for life" and to implement the structures, routines and habits that bestow our lives with a sense of meaning and accomplishment. In a city where people are often compelled to prioritize work above all else and to exist in a perpetual state of digital distraction, Ian embraces the opportunity to work with those who want to tune out the noise and tune in to their authentic selves in a calm, reflective space. Areas of focus include:

  • Developing a psychologically-oriented way of looking at yourself and your relationships and being able to communicate with others from a position of self-insight and clarity.
  • Exploring your emotional "underground" and bringing it "above ground" in ways that are non-destructive and additive to a healthy, positive, inter-connected approach to life.
  • Understanding your own temperament so that you can regulate your emotions in healthy ways and better tolerate difficult emotions and life-stressors.
  • Staying within your "window of tolerance" and being able to self-regulate and stabilize when you are outside of it.
  • Engaging in healthy behaviors and using positive coping mechanisms rather than negative ones.
  • Reflecting upon and making sense of your history to better understand the choices you're making; processing trauma.
  • Navigating inter-personal relationships; building up your sense of personhood; cultivating a theory of mind in order to accurately mentalize others around you and interact in ways that are multi-dimensional and maintain your personhood without compromising another's sense of self.
  • Making difficult choices; changing directions; addressing the unknown.

Therapy provides an opportunity to satisfy our innate need for human connectedness in a way that is becoming increasingly rare.1 Ian's approach is both psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral, and in some instances he uses EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) to target emotional dysregulation and the effects of trauma. Individual therapy sessions are generally weekly.

Ian also provides ketamine-assisted psychotherapy to individuals and couples, which often leads to insights, breakthroughs and healing that have previously been elusive.

1. Research has demonstrated that positive experiences of human connectedness fulfill the body's need to co-regulate biobehavioral states through engagement with others, and that connectedness provides an important neurobiological mechanism to link social behavior with mental and physical health (Porges, 2016).