Approach

What our work feels like

Therapy is a place where we begin together. I bring my full humanity into the room, holding both depth and lightness at the same time.

How I show up

I am an engaged, attentive, collaborative, and thoughtfully directive therapist. I bring a grounded candor to my work, balanced with room for nuance, metaphor, and the poetry of human experience. I don't sit back in passive silence, and I don't follow a generic script.

In our sessions, I bring my own reflections into the room, name patterns as they surface, and blend depth-oriented psychoanalytic inquiry with pragmatic strategies for daily life. If you arrive looking for someone to hand you a mechanical blueprint or tell you who to be, that's not how I work. What I do bring is an absolute commitment to thinking alongside you, slowing down, and discovering what genuinely has meaning for your life.

My focus is to create the conditions where you no longer have to edit or conceal who you are just to be known.

There is room for your full experience here, especially the messy, unresolved parts. You never need to show up polished. I treat the therapeutic relationship as a living "third space," where the dynamics that trip you up outside the room will inevitably show up between us. If you pull away when closeness feels risky, intellectualize your pain, or default to taking care of everyone else, that will likely happen here too. When it does, we don't judge it. We look at it in real time, honor how it once protected you, and practice relating differently.

The armchair in Colin's therapy office, with a soft blue pillow and watercolor art on the walls

What we look at together

A core influence on my work is psychoanalytic psychotherapy, which explores how formative relationships shape how we bond, what we desire, what we fear, and what we conceal from ourselves. We start with what is weighing on you right now, and gradually get to what sits underneath it: the subtle, unseen currents that shape how you feel and connect.

With couples and in sex therapy, our work may take on a more practical, structured rhythm. With couples, I draw heavily on the Gottman Method to provide concrete tools: breaking down reactive conflict cycles and practicing reliable ways to de-escalate, listen, and repair. In sex therapy, we pair practical tools with an honest look at what shapes intimacy, desire, and erotic connection.

Lasting change begins when your emotional reality is witnessed and understood, rather than managed away.

In therapy, we get to explore and humanize our imperfections. Change in this work is rarely tidy. We circle back to familiar themes, discovering something clearer each time, until the defenses that once kept you safe lose their grip. Gradually, you learn to let people close without bracing for abandonment, and move through your life with grounded presence and vitality.

Lombard Street winding down the hill, seen from above

Curious what working together might feel like? Let’s talk.

Book a free consultation What I offer