About Psychotherapy
with Dr. Michael Damian
I offer psychodynamic therapy that treats problems at their root and creates life-changing results.
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Each time I speak with a new patient, it is with the confidence of having helped hundreds of people to significantly improve their lives and relationships. I am honored to do this work and it is my life's calling.
My clinical knowledge is joined with laser-sharp perception into personality structure and the next steps needed for growth. I have a high rate of success helping people find relief, understand themselves and live a more empowered life.
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Love.
Success. Empowerment.
Connection and spiritual growth.
This is transformational psychotherapy.
I understand you'd like something to change in your life. I can help you shift your unconscious patterns and grow into a broader vision of who you are and what your life can be.
If you are new to therapy or have been frustrated with therapy in the past, then I welcome you to a highly transformative and practical approach.
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Most of my patients experience major breakthroughs and significant healing. My passion is helping people solve problems and transform their lives in the process. I have broad experience assessing complex issues and helping people get through a crisis.
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My style is warm, engaging, and incisive. I bring a combination of clinical knowledge, humanistic wisdom and pragmatic problem-solving that is highly effective for most patients.
In our sessions you will encounter someone who listens deeply, asks powerful questions, is able to rapidly understand your situation, and accurately diagnose complex problems.
I've helped many people to profoundly transform their lives and I'll be honored to help you too.
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The first step is for you to send an email or call me, so that we can have a brief phone call to assess your needs and whether I can help you.
A Refreshing Experience of Psychotherapy
Although "therapy" is everywhere, I believe that relatively few people are experiencing what psychotherapy can and should be. Surveys show that most people are looking for something deeper - that helps them truly understand themselves, heal and grow. This is what I offer.
A psychotherapy of depth, insight and relationship
creates lasting change.
What is psychodyamic psychotherapy?
​Psychodynamic, or "depth," psychology is the theoretical framework that gave rise to the entire field of psychotherapy. It acknowledges that our life development is shaped by multiple factors including,
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Early childhood bonding and attachment to parents
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Innate personality traits and type
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Family patterns and major events
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Traumas or abuse
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Culture and education.
​​Our ability to feel securely connected to others, tolerate stress, feel and express our emotions, communicate effectively, take care of ourselves, and take action in our lives are all shaped by developmental factors.
This does not mean that our childhood and past events determine our entire life. It means that we think about a person's present issues in terms of the capacities, skills, and attitudes they have developed over their lifetime. We consider how unresolved issues from the past still shape the present. By becoming more conscious of these issues we gain more freedom in our present lives.
Personality Type
Depth psychotherapy also acknowledges that each person, regardless of past experiences, has a unique personality type. It is not enough to say that "Everyone is unique." We can identify several distinct personality types that shape a person's major traits and ways of perceiving life.
Some people are more quiet and reserved. Others are wildly social and outgoing.
Some are very abstract, intellectual, and emotionally reserved. Others are very expressive, empathetic, and passionate.
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Some people are very concrete, practical and down to earth -- focusing on "What is and how it works."
Others excel at seeing patterns and possibilities - perceiving "What can be and what it all means."
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The personality differences between, say, a software engineer and a social worker; a politician and a poet; a real estate agent and a priest, are profound. ​​
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Finding Wholeness and Balance
Our diverse personality traits create predictable strengths and weaknesses. Our type not only describes our strongest tendencies and skills but also the blindspots we will tend to encounter and struggle with, especially when we reach midlife.
Up until the age of 40, or midlife, we will have spent most of our time expressing our most dominant personality traits and skills. We use these qualities to build our life. By the age of 40, we start to see how our less conscious areas and weaknesses are creating problems in our lives.
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The well known midlife crisis is not only a confrontation with our mortality -- it is a confrontation with the parts of ourselves we have neglected, and the areas of life where we need some work.
A strong thinker must develop his emotional intelligence. An intuitive person must become more grounded and practical. A practical and concrete person must learn to be creative and go with the flow.
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Becoming aware of our weaknesses and developing the neglected areas of our personality not only allows us to improve difficult aspects of our lives but also to experience a kind of spiritual renewal, or even rebirth, as we expand our experience of life and our deepest identity. ​
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Depth psychology acknowledges our lifelong need for self-actualization and spiritual growth, in addition to healing neurotic patterns.
Problems ask us to become conscious
Every problem we face in life is asking us to become more conscious. Our problems arise because of factors that we are not aware of, and which we do not understand.
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Perhaps you're being asked to discover who you really are and how much better your life can be.
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Depth psychology has a humanistic, positive vision of our life's journey. It views us as complex individuals who are in a lifelong process of learning and discovery. This view is inherently more spiritually and philosophically enriching. It is quite different from a merely medical view of therapy, which tends to view people as malfunctioning machines that just need the right medicine or formulaic technique to reduce symptoms.
This means that the main question for healing is not "How can I help this person feel less depressed?"
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Rather it is, "How can I help this person become more conscious, insightful and empowered so that they outgrow their depression?"
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Paying attention brings change
Psychotherapy is a process of paying deeper attention to your inner experience. Most importantly, that means paying attention to feelings of stress, sadness and frustration that you haven't been able to fully understand or express on your own.
I'm here to help you pay closer attention to your inner life. It is always emotional pain that gets our attention, and that usually means some form of anxiety, depression or conflict that seems to be getting worse.
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Paying attention is a compassionate response to pain. From attention, comes understanding - and then positive change.
When we understand our thoughts, feelings and actions, we start to experience our innate sanity and well-being. New insights naturally bubble up, and healing happens. Our daily energy and attitude become more fresh and dynamic, full of optimism and courage rather than fear and doubt.
But to get to this place, there is inner work to do. To know who we are, where we are going and how to get there starts with exploring the more unconscious areas and blindspots in us.
A refreshing experience of therapy
The first session or two usually creates a new sense of hope and relief. In many cases, patients are relieved that someone has clearly understood their problem and pointed the way forward.
As therapy progresses, my aim will be to help you understand yourself better and improve your life in many ways. I do this by paying attention to where your opportunities for growth seem to be. I will often recommend books, new daily habits, or activities that I think might be helpful to you.
Therapy helps people know themselves better and think about their lives and relationships in more effective ways. When you feel supported and understood, you will feel more able to know what is right for you in your life.
An ally during difficult times
I am a strong ally for those who are in crisis, who need encouragement and who wish to find a deeper ground of strength and wisdom in their lives. My role is to help you explore what is most true, real and helpful for you.
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Nothing pleases me more than seeing my clients' lives improve, and I will be honored to help you too. Just send me a message or give me a call to discuss your situation.
The Hero's Journey
This is a film about healing and self-actualization that many of my patients have found enriching. Healing is a process of becoming conscious of who we really are, learning to give and receive love, and finding the sacred within the ordinary.
Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.
- Henry Miller
I practice a psychology of Self-Actualization, based on the life-giving and broad-minded philosophy of Carl Jung and other humanistic psychologists.
Jung understood that although it is important to take a "depth" view of a person's psyche and unconscious, the work of healing and becoming conscious must always be centered in the present moment of a person's life.
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Therapy must therefore never be stuck only in intellectual analysis, insights, or feelings. It must always encourage the patient to take new actions and to courageously rise to the challenge of living a full and authentic life.
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In this respect, Jung's vision of self-actualization creates a bridge between inner wisdom and outer living -- between introversion and extroversion, thinking and feeling. To the extent that we balance and harmonize these qualities, we overcome the one-sided development and blindspots that cause our neurotic and dysfunctional issues.