STEWART HOCKENBERRY, Ph.D.

If you are coming to my site, then you probably already have an idea about what is not working in your life but may be less clear as to why.  It is the question of why that is usually more important--and the one I am most drawn to helping people to explore.

MY APPROACH

I have been doing this work for many years, first as a broadly trained psychologist and later with psychoanalytic training.  Over the years, I have found the psychoanalytic perspective to provide the sturdiest grounding for both the problems that bring so many of us to therapy and what this work can ultimately offer:  that of making the examined life a lifelong pursuit.

There are many problems that may prompt any of us to enter psychotherapy.  But for a good number of them, our best efforts to resolve things on our own have proved ineffective.  From a psychoanalytically informed perspective, this is often because many of our present-day problems are expressions of less conscious, emotionally rooted patterns we have internalized from our past.  

These patterns can take many forms:  recurring depression or anxiety, difficulties in relationships, self-defeating or compulsive behavior, or simply a persistent sense that something in one's life is not as it should be.  In this way, emotional “lessons” from the past can continue to affect our present lives--our relationships, what we see and believe about ourselves, our needs and sensitivities, what we are able to tolerate, and what we pursue or come to regard as beyond our reach.

WHAT TO EXPECT

This work can be demanding at times.  It can bring us into contact with anxieties and conflicts many of us have learned to avoid—sometimes ones we've never spoken of.  Yet gradually, by bringing our anxieties and conflicts into meaningful words and reflection, what may have long operated in the shadows or at the edges of awareness can come more fully into the clearing of workable understanding.  

Doing this emotional work together in therapy can open a greater freedom to make meaningful new choices--ones that may stand apart from previous "choice" patterns we have been conditioned to accept and live by.

I see the investment in our work together as something that continues to bear further gains long after our time together has ended—as the capacities for emotional self-awareness, reflection, curiosity, and greater freedom of choice increasingly becomes your own.

During our first session, I will want to discuss with you your reasons for coming in and how you would like to move forward in your life. Where we go from there will be a course we set together.