You are a creator, a maker. You may be an artist, photographer, dancer, performer, designer, digital artist. You may be a professional in mid-career or just starting out. You may be doing something else for income, while reserving your art for your downtime or combining multiple streams of work.

In the course of the creative life, anxiety and depression can be unwelcome companions. Doubts and worry can block, stall or slow progress in creation and execution.

There are many ways to address these barriers to a fulfilling creative life and career. I welcome you to explore my thinking and approach. I hope you will find value in the material here.

Psychotherapy

Classically, artists have sought psychotherapy as a means to unblock or to accelerate creativity. The creation of a safe therapeutic relationship allows you to explore themes of negative emotions, self-esteem, interpersonal relations, success, failure in a nonjudgmental setting over the course of time. Therapy can also be used to improve feelings towards self, others, the world and the future.

My style: humanistic treatment focused on the here-and-now issues of life lived today. Therapy is not so much about the past and its traumas as it is about how the past continues and repeats and blocks living today.

Coaching

Coaching is focused on performance, setting and meeting goals that are relevant to advancing career. Self-direction is the key, looking for strengths and weaknesses, to work with your natural strengths, to plan for skills development and develop and execute strategies designed to optimize your performance.

Critical Response Process

During the course of work, you may want to receive appropriate and helpful feedback. This is an area of much difficulty. Artists may be wary of exposing their work to others because they have in the past received destructive or irrelevant comments, or suggestions that slowed (or worse, derailed) valuable work.

One technique proven over time to have positive results is the Critical Response Process developed by Liz Lerman. The archetypal Process is a 60 to 90 minute session where the artist assembles an audience who will experience the work in progress. There is then a structured sequence of interactions between artist and audience, moderated by a facilitator for optimum results. I can help you organize and execute a critical response session.