Psychotherapy
Adult
| Adolescent | Child
Wisdom
cannot be taught by
words. It is only possible by
personal contact and by
immediate
experience.
—C. G. Jung
Mark
Sullivan, Ph.D., MFT.
Jungian Analyst and Psychotherapist
Adult Psychotherapy
Whatever your stage of life or the nature of your personal struggle, your psyche is looking for ways to grow. As we listen to the difficulties that bring you to therapy, you will hear them anew. A dream, an image, an overlooked thought emerges and, unexpectedly, you witness previously hidden obstacles to your growth. As we face them together, your creativity can fully emerge to help you forge a new path where you appeared to be entrenched.
I work with adults engaged with a wide range of difficulties from relationship issues, problems at work, life transitions, problems with peers, isolation, addictions, sexuality, anxiety, depression, bipolar illness, grief, trauma, loss, aging, and physical illness.
Call for a free phone consultation or to make an initial appointment to see if I am the right fit for you. (510) 541-0548
Adolescent Psychotherapy
When children hit puberty, they are flooded with new hormones that prod them to grow and change not only physically but emotionally, too. Individual teens react differently. Some pre-teens and teens become much more volatile. Some become more withdrawn. Others become outright anti-social.
A good psychotherapy relationship helps a teen to take space and reflect on what he or she is doing. They learn tools to slow themselves down, if they are impulsive. If they are shut down, they can learn how to let go. And the anti-social or overly entitled teen gets help in exploring how they got to be so devaluing or dismissive of parents, teachers, and peers in ways that prod them to grow.
The teen or pre-teen suffering with Attention Deficit Disorder or from autistic behaviors gets significant help from the right, trained therapist. From the experience of relating to the therapist, a troubled teen not only learns new concrete skills. They also develop ways to be in relationship with the therapist and themselves that they then bring out into their world of family, friends, and school. Over time and with practice, school performance improves, peer relationships get better, and life at home gets easier for everyone.
Child Psychotherapy
In the fast moving and changing world in which we live, children are especially vulnerable to getting out of synch. When they do, they show their difficulty through behaviors that concern their parents, teachers, siblings and peers.
Because childhood is such a formative time, children change and develop more quickly than adults. Though they can suffer with severe problems in behavior, in a trusting psychotherapy relationship, a child can develop new ways of being that stop behaviors from becoming entrenched so that they do not become problematic for them over the course of their life.
Through play, children express what troubles them. The therapist trained in play therapy enters into their stories to help them express themselves more deeply. Over time, core issues emerge. The therapist then works in different ways with both the child and the family to understand the themes of what is troubling the child. As they partner together, the therapist, the child, and the parents create an environment more conducive to the child’s becoming his or her healthier, truer self.
Couples Psychotherapy and Counseling
Couples often come to therapy in a state of unresolved conflict or a communication impasse. Given time and a safe environment, couples can change the habitual behaviors that fuel disagreement or promote distance.
A therapist trained in working with couples helps each member to listen to the other more accurately and empathically. A couple can then rediscover what first drew each to the other and what kinds of behavior further a loving connection. In the process of careful listening to each other, couples learn to recognize how outmoded ways of relating get triggered. Over time and in the safety of a trusting therapy relationship, each member can partner with the other in new ways that disrupt destructive patterns at the same time as they create new, enlivening and more loving ways to be together.
Consultation for Psychotherapists
No matter how much experience you have as a therapist, consultation offers an opportunity to listen to your work afresh. In a good consultation relationship, you can explore the nature of the unique couple you form with each of your patients, learning in each instance what kind of field you have constructed together, what kinds of barriers to growth you are mutually caught in, and what kinds of special gifts the two of you have developed. In the container of the unique relationship that we create in consultation, your own clinical voice and style can come out and flourish.
©2012 Mark Sullivan
Phone:
(510) 541-0548 2 Office Locations: 5237 College Ave. 337 Spruce Street |