Addiction Therapists in Santa Rosa, CA.

Addiction and substance abuse are deeply painful patterns of relating to ourselves and others that are positively intentioned, even though the outcome is devastating. In my work, together we make sense of the need to use all kinds of substances or behaviors in a compassionate and clear way, which then enables us to powerfully heal the parts of you that are propelling you toward addiction. We can then attend to the underlying wounding that brings addiction forward. Unhealed trauma, the need for relief, dissociation and numbing, and painful family and relational histories are often at the core of our addictive behaviors - I can help you untangle these and find a new way through your life!

I specialize in working with internet, video game, cell phone, social media, and porn addictions. These process addictions have acquired a power over you that is difficult to break. I take a multi-faceted approach to helping you experience the change you desire. I use Motivational Interviewing to help you solidify your desire to change, I utilize abstinence based strategies and methods to help you establish and sustain sobriety, I help you learn how to replace these addictions with real relationships and interests that foster real relationships and I support you in identifying or establishing a natural support network that helps you to maintain and sustain the new changes in your life!

If pornography is out of control in your life, or feels like an unhealthy habit, or addiction, I offer therapy specifically intended to help you understand your dependance upon porn, why it's so difficult to stop using, and how you can take your life back and experience freedom. If pornography has become a problem in your relationship, I help couples understand the role pornography serves, how to build empathy and understanding between one another, and how to fill the needs pornography serves in a more fulfilling way.

Addiction can be a tricky and slippery issue to deal with due to its nonlogical nature. I know this from personal experience because I dealt with with addiction issues before becoming a psychotherapist. It is this combination of personal and professional experience that makes me uniquely qualified to help people recover from this particular issue. With the aid of tools like EMDR CBT and guided visualizations I can help you overcome this issue and heal from the issues that drive it. Additionally, I can provide tools, coping skills, and other resources to help you manage particular issues while I’m helping you heal.

Are you finding yourself needing to fill a void with alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography, or even other people? Any of these things can be considerred addictions. When you get addicted to something, power is given away in the sense that you no longer feel complete or whole without the object of your addiction. Recovery means not only stopping the addictive behavior but learning new ways to restore wholeness. In therapy with me, you learn more fulfilling ways to feel whole and complete without the addictive behavior. I often work with people in long term recovery as well, to form a new, more meaningful life. I am well versed in traditional 12 step and alternative approaches.

We have all experienced some sort of addiction, whether it be to food, work, sex, alcohol, a drug, gambling, shopping, or our cell phone… This unconscious escapism or desire to fill a void runs rampant in our modern day lifestyle. What do we do when addiction is eroding our quality of life and/or our relationships? I find the solution is often in identifying the core wound that is causing you to want to escape, or to fill a void. I offer a more spiritual approach to recovery work in which you will cultivate your relationship with your Higher Self and learn how to keep the addict part of you in the back seat with the seat belt on.