depth therapy.
Maybe you've been to therapy before. Maybe you've tried something structured like CBT, worked through some coping strategies, and still felt like something essential was left untouched. Or maybe you're coming to therapy for the first time and you already sense that you want more than symptom management. You want to understand yourself at a deeper level.
If that resonates, depth psychotherapy might be exactly what you've been looking for.
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Most people are familiar with shorter-term, goal-oriented therapies. CBT is a highly effective approach for identifying and reshaping unhelpful thought patterns. It's practical, structured, widely used…and it's also one of the tools I draw on in my own practice.
Depth psychotherapy does something different.
Rather than primarily targeting surface-level symptoms, it turns toward the unconscious. The vast inner world of memories, emotions, patterns, and meaning that shapes how we move through life, often without our awareness.
Rooted in psychoanalytic and psychodynamic traditions, depth psychology holds that symptoms like anxiety, depression, or chronic relationship difficulties aren't simply problems to be solved. They are communications. The psyche's way of asking for attention, integration, and change. This orientation asks not just what you're feeling but why. And what that feeling might be trying to tell you.
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Depth therapy sessions are relational and exploratory. There's no rigid script. We follow what's alive: what you bring into the room, what emerges in conversation, what the body or emotions seem to be pointing toward.
Depending on what you're working through, I also integrate other evidence-based approaches to support the depth work.
EMDR, which is a research-backed method for processing trauma and distressing memories that may be stored in the nervous system. CBT, to help identify and shift the thought patterns that keep us stuck in cycles of anxiety, self-criticism, or avoidance. And somatic approaches, working with the body's sensations, posture, and breath, because the psyche doesn't live only in the mind. Healing often needs to happen at the level of the body too.
The integration of these approaches with psychodynamic depth work means that sessions can feel both grounded and expansive. Attentive to what's happening right now, while also making room for longer arcs of meaning and growth.
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Depth psychotherapy isn't for everyone. And that's okay.
It tends to be a particularly good fit for people who feel like they've "done the work" but something still feels unresolved. People who are drawn to questions of identity, purpose, or meaning. People navigating a major life transition: a career change, a relationship ending, midlife, grief, a loss of direction.
People who notice recurring patterns in relationships or emotional reactions and want to understand where they come from. People who are creative, reflective, drawn to the inner life…and want a therapist who can meet them there. And people who have experienced trauma and want to heal it in a way that feels integrated, not just managed.
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Do you have to talk about your childhood?
Not necessarily. And certainly not right away. We go at your pace. Early experiences often become relevant over time, not because we're excavating the past for its own sake, but because the past lives in the present in ways that can be both limiting and illuminating. What we haven't fully processed continues to shape us, often beneath our conscious awareness.
How long does depth therapy take?
Depth and psychodynamic work is generally longer-term than brief or solution-focused therapy because real transformation takes time. That said, many clients notice meaningful shifts within the first few months. We check in regularly about how things are progressing and what feels right for you.
What if you also need practical tools, not just insight?
Depth work and practical tools aren't opposites. They complement each other. When needed, I bring in CBT techniques, EMDR, or somatic practices to address what's happening right now, while the deeper psychodynamic exploration continues underneath. You don't have to choose between the two.
