Individual therapy will examine your symptoms in the larger context of your life to uncover the underlying issues, beliefs, attachment patterns and emotions that keep you feeling stuck. Our work together will aim to alleviate symptoms, address underlying causes, increase self-awareness, strengthen your relationships and promote deep, lasting change. Therapy will teach you the skills necessary to live with more confidence, awareness, and creativity, as well as grow your capacity to effectively navigate the normal ups and downs of life.

Experiential Dynamic Therapy is an umbrella term that applies to two therapeutic modalities that I have extensive post-graduate training in: Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) and Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP). These approaches are primarily informed by psychodynamic, attachment, affective neuroscience, and experiential (mindfulness) perspectives. ISTDP and AEDP are evidenced-based, active and focused forms of therapy that aims for long-lasting change by diving deeply and quickly below the surface of our symptoms to address the underlying emotional patterns that keep us stuck and suffering.

More about ISTDP (Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy)

The goal of this type of therapy is simple: to help you identify and turn against the unhelpful emotional patterns that keep you stuck and suffering, to face what you fear, and to experience your feelings as deeply as possible in order to get to the bottom of your difficulties. This way, you will be able to channel those feelings into adaptive action so that you can achieve your goals in life.

In your therapy sessions, I will pay particular attention to you and your patterned ways of relating to other people, and also the ways you habitually relate to yourself and to your emotions. I will share with you my observations and help you identify those patterns which may be contributing to your difficulties and stuckness. I will also pay attention to how we are relating to each other moment to moment during the session, as this will provide us a valuable opportunity to examine these patterns in real time. This careful focus on your present, here and now, moment to moment emotional experience is the key to this modality’s ability to resolve deep emotional difficulties in a relatively short amount of time.

Note: Therapy sessions are video-recorded (with client permission) and will be encrypted and protected. See FAQ for more information.

See Dr. Sia’s introductory video for more information on ISTDP: